I also believe many developers working for BigCorp would be very happy if they could ask the company to donate e.g. $100 randomly to an Open Source project they use and like.
So, why don't open source authors create more small courses like these? It could be a very small one, with bold letters like "this is an educative course ask your company to buy it for you", but still I believe it aligns incentives of everyone fairly well. The developer does learn a bit, the company is paying for education and the author gets money.
Main concern would be that it takes time from the developers to build, but it could be a fairly small one? Like a "Improve your knowledge of X library with practical examples" sort of things.
So, why is this not more popular? Is it too small of a niche? (not enough companies pay for education) Or is it too much work for little benefit for the authors? Or is it just because selling a course is a lot of overhead for authors? (now should be a lot easier with companies like Gumroad etc).
So, the demand question, do you have a budget in your company that you can spend for education? And would you buy a course from the author of one of the libraries that you like/use as a form of donation?
I've asked about making use of said budget to get myself and my subordinates some training on technologies my team was saddled with by people who don't work here anymore.
Repeatedly.
Let the italics serve as a point of reference for my frustration on how responsive $company has been on the topic.