> It is possible to put a lot of work into taking a MOOC and get nothing but false understandings and misconceptions out of it because the trust we put in the developers is misplaced.

Of course, bad classes taught by unqualified instructors are offered in the traditional format, too. They may be rare at elite U.S. universities (the author is at Georgia Tech), but certainly at lower level U.S. universities there are plenty of classes taught by people with shaky subject knowledge. I've been in some of them.