After the Hype, Do MOOC Ventures Like edX Still Matter? - Anant Agarwal Interviewed By Goldie Blumenstyk, Chronicle of Higher Ed

As a nonprofit, you want to have the biggest impact, not necessarily the biggest ROI for investors. You can do things like that. So we give our platform away for free. A second example is that on edX, we are still offering MOOCs, which are courses where people can do the whole learning for free. You may have to pay for a credential, but we still offer MOOCs, and virtually all our courses are MOOCs. Even for a MicroMasters and premium offerings, people can learn completely for free. A lot of the for-profits have pivoted and put up paywalls in their programs. And edX pretty much has and will continue to offer free courses and programs. And as a nonprofit, that certainly reduces the revenue that you can generate. But we have a very long-term horizon. http://www.chronicle.com/article/After-the-Hype-Do-MOOC/240155