What is something I can learn online that I can't learn elsewhere?

During my MBA at Wharton, if you wanted to take an elective course, it was not like you could just go and enrol. Every semester there was an auction process, where you had to bid for courses and you could enrol only after winning the bid. Some courses of popular instructors were absurdly expensive (costing 5,000–10,000 points vs. most courses selling for 100 points).

In fact, I ‘illegally’ attended classes of Prof David Wessels on corporate valuation because they were so good. We had to often drag chairs from nearby classes or sit on the floor. After spending $150,000 for tuition and expenses, we were sometimes not able to take a class of our choice, and I used to get very frustrated.

And here is the irony.

Today, outstanding courses from Wharton as well as many top engineering and business schools are available online on platforms like Coursera for free. And we take it for granted. Even I don’t spend as much time learning as I should be doing. Yet, there is very little that you can’t learn online, which would be virtually impossible to do otherwise.

I don’t know whether it is funny or sad, but we humans value things only when we don’t have them. Once we have the thing, it often loses all value for us.