The fact MasterClass ranks first in Google for "what is a shallot?" is pretty surprising.
No more surprising than this MasterClass ad from the nytimes. We know companies hire PR firms to get their products in articles/ads in newspapers and favorable "SEO" rankings.
Obviously it's regional, but from my UK perspective shallots are not exotic.
I'm not aware that they even suffer from multiple names as do spring/salad/green onions/scallions. Echalions of course, but that's a subcategory.
If shallots are unfamiliar, again, UK, you've spent little time even in supermarket vegetable aisles or restaurants and, surely, are therefore unlikely to actually part with cash a cooking class?
I'm not sure I'd go that far. Shallots can also be confused with scallops. (They're not similar things, but they are similar names.)
I think it's more likely that it means you're trying to read a menu, really.
- maybe many people who don't know what a shallot is would drop $80 for a Ramsay masterclass (kind of like how Gyms primarily profit from non-users).
- that many people who search for "what is a shallot" in fact do already know what a shallot is and are interested in gaining advanced/deeper information about the subject.