Back in the day, if you wanted to learn, you had to walk into a classroom, sit under buzzing fluorescent lights, and leaf through a textbook. Knowledge was a treasure, hidden away, accessible only to those who could pay for it or knew where to look.

Then the internet arrived.

Suddenly, knowledge was everywhere. Forums bloomed, blogs multiplied, and YouTube opened its doors in 2005, promising answers to every question. The world celebrated the age of “free.” If you needed to learn something, all you had to do was type it into a search bar.

But let’s talk about what “free” really costs today.

𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗗𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗞𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝗚𝗼𝗼𝗱, 𝗬𝗼𝘂’𝗹𝗹 𝗧𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗔𝗻𝘆𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴

Starting a new program, be it Nuke, Maya, Unreal, or Houdini, feels like stepping into a foreign country without a guide. You open the interface and search for help. Tutorials promise to be your savior.

Here’s the catch: when you’re new, you don’t know what a good tutorial looks like. Without experience, every tutorial seems credible. You don’t yet know what you don’t know, and that leaves you vulnerable.

You spend hours following every step, only to realize you’re still as confused as when you started. Frustration builds. Confidence fades. Every subject demands a unique approach. Teaching English requires different tools than teaching physics. The same is true for learning compositing versus rigging. Yet most tutorials are one-size-fits-all, designed from the creator’s perspective, not the learner’s.

They say, “Here’s how I do it,” instead of asking, “How can I help you understand?”

This creates a disconnect. Hours wasted. Confusion mounting. Progress stalled. Free tutorials can leave you stuck instead of moving forward. As a beginner, you end up copying workflows without grasping the principles behind them. You waste time on steps that don’t lead anywhere meaningful.

Free isn’t really free.

It costs your time, your energy, and sometimes your confidence. The promise of free can often leave you spinning in circles. In the sea of free, the most valuable thing you can spend is your time. To truly grow, it might be time to rethink how you learn. Seek creators who focus on clarity and prioritize the "why" behind the steps, not just the "how."

P.S. How did you feel paying for a tutorial, only to realize that what you learned applied only to that one tutorial? Choose wisely, because what you invest in today determines how far you'll go tomorrow.