-Centralized resources (Because I doubt the average child will go to IRC channels let alone know what they are)
-Consistency in service and access (Because even if a kid did use IRC / Stack Overflow, they're not guaranteed an answer)
-Tolerance and willingness to teach (Cough Stack Overflow "Closed because question isn't a proper format"; Flame posts like "Wow, you're an idiot, never use X technique")
-Quality of resources (Graphics, video, demonstrations project files vs. sifting through disjointed posts)
-Physical, Local Community (If you want to teach a kid to swim, put him in a class with kids his age. Not in an IRC full of varying ages and no faces)
From an educational standpoint this makes perfect sense. From an open-source hacker's perspective maybe not. But that's why this isn't geared towards open-source hackers. It be fo teh children dawg.
Centralized resources have a one-time construction cost and typically don't need too much maintenance unless they try to reflect living standards or moving targets (see: MDN / whatwg), and hosting isn't really expensive these days, not even for video content.
What would make sense to me is that the content is available freely, but if you need help, tutorship is a paid service, and potentially with credit that means something (affordable MOOC accreditation, pls?). That's a model I think would work great in education, not a premium on the content itself, because the focal point is "sale of content = money" not "providing excellent tutorship = money."
You already have the in-person tutorship in the form of teachers. The problem there is that they aren't paid well enough to attract people who really want to teach, and there isn't a surplus of them, either. There's an entire discussion here on education reform. I don't like to put the profitability in education in the content itself (I'm not entirely against it, though, but I'm especially against paywalled content or subscription content, which is why I still refuse to get an ACM subscription even though I could really use it, and instead use arXiv), but rather in the teaching/mentoring role. Then a business can profit but so can people who are passionate about teaching.
I personally hate that the only way to make a good living in this world right now is to go work for some company or startup in some crowded area, or to do something dangerous. In 20-25 years, I'd love to teach, but that means I'd have to finish my Ph.D., then maybe make 60-80k (where I'd like to end up) after a long career, and given I'd probably have kids and maybe grandkids soon to follow, it seems ridiculous that I'd have to accept the cost of grad school + a terrible salary, and that's in a university where ALL the money is. <jackiechan.jpg>
-Centralized resources (Because I doubt the average child will go to IRC channels let alone know what they are)
-Consistency in service and access (Because even if a kid did use IRC / Stack Overflow, they're not guaranteed an answer)
-Tolerance and willingness to teach (Cough Stack Overflow "Closed because question isn't a proper format"; Flame posts like "Wow, you're an idiot, never use X technique")
-Quality of resources (Graphics, video, demonstrations project files vs. sifting through disjointed posts)
-Physical, Local Community (If you want to teach a kid to swim, put him in a class with kids his age. Not in an IRC full of varying ages and no faces)
From an educational standpoint this makes perfect sense. From an open-source hacker's perspective maybe not. But that's why this isn't geared towards open-source hackers. It be fo teh children dawg.