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Quoting Josh W. Comeau: AI is Crushing Online Course Sales

Summary

Josh W. Comeau reports his new course is selling at 1/3 of typical rates, attributing it to AI: developers fear job loss and LLMs offer personalized tutoring, reducing demand for paid courses. Other creators report 50%+ revenue drops.

Quoting Josh W. Comeau: AI is Crushing Online Course Sales
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A quote from Josh W. Comeau

Simon Willison’s Weblog

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3rd July 2026

I just launched my third course, Whimsical Animations, and so far, it’s on track to sell roughly ⅓ as many copies as a typical course launch.

It’s a similar story with my two existing courses. Sales are down significantly from last year.

There are likely a lot of reasons for this, but I think the biggest is AI. There’s sort of a double whammy with AI:

Many people are wondering whether developer jobs will even exist in a few months, so they’re reluctant to spend time/money learning new dev skills.

Even if they do want to learn new dev skills, LLMs can provide personalized tutoring, so there’s less incentive to buy a paid course.

[...] I’ve spoken to a few course creators now, and we’re all seeing the same trend. Revenue down 50%+. Fewer people engaging with our content. People switching to LLMs, which slurp up all of our work and regurgitate it, without consent or compensation.

— Josh W. Comeau, via Salma Alam-Naylor

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This is a quotation collected by Simon Willison, posted on 3rd July 2026.

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Key points and analysis

Article intelligence

EngineersIntermediate

Key points

  • Josh W. Comeau's new course sells only 1/3 of usual numbers.
  • He cites AI as the main cause: job uncertainty plus LLM tutoring.
  • Multiple course creators report 50%+ revenue decline, users switching to AI.
  • LLMs ingest creator content without consent or compensation.

Highlights and analysis are generated automatically and may contain errors. Check the original source.