Paid or Free, Dedication Matters.
There is a belief among many that learning should be free. Actually, it is, but we do have an invisible tendency to ignore things that are given free of cost. We ran after the paid ones thinking those are a step ahead of the free ones. In some cases, it is true, because those are actively monitored and some do really put their efforts into making the service worth the money. Free stuff is from the willingness to serve the community, it returns no monetary value yet people try to invest themselves in paying back to the community.
Lemme tell you a funny story, a story of self-realization. Six to seven months ago, I purchased a one-month subscription to a platform for learning purposes. While going through them, I was seeing many modules that I had been practicing are also available for free. I was like, “I got a limited subscription, why didn’t I finish the free ones before? Could have utilized the subscription only for the paid ones.” I could have solved more modules that were available only for the paid ones.
Lesson learned, this time I planned to take the subscription again but before that,.I have selected a particular path that I plan to finish and get the certificate. So before purchasing the subscription I have completed all the free modules. Surprisingly, I have covered 40% of the whole path that I had selected. Can you believe it? Now I plan to start another path and complete those free portions so that I can go through the paid modules faster than going through the whole one at once. There are some demerits as well but those are too little to consider.
See? Even the paid platform has left scope to gather some knowledge for free or to better utilize the money along with the free stuff.
As for the free stuff, there are plenty of good resources. It just takes a strong determination that no matter what happens, I will research and learn by myself. In the paid ones, there might be someone bound to teach you, to push you but in the free space, things are scattered, you need to collect them and place them in the suitable places. I meant, to create your own learning path with the pieces, be the accountant of your own progress and lackings, and the most important one is strong determination. If this can be brought into action then it won't matter much of a difference alongside the paid ones.
The boom of the internet and content creators has made the resource pool filled with quality stuff along with some trash. All we need is the sense to differentiate between them and stay dedicated.