RailsCast is an amazing service and I don't know if I could've ever learned Rails (and the RoR ecosystem) without it. Definitely a service worth paying for. I'm glad he's keeping the free episodes because it would be a shame if newbies shied away from trying it out because episodes were no longer free.
Now this is a service from someone who contributed to community a lot. Unlike that textmate debacle where people would pledge money for nothing, this is the real deal and it is very reasonable. I could see how this could cost more, but I can see how with this he will probably get good following, provide for Ryan resources to continue his work.<p>I will be happy to subscribe to such service and to add, I would subscribe just to say thanks for years of awesome content.
I'm glad to see an outstandingly helpful member of the rails community earn income from what has been a mostly altruistic task that must take a lot of time every week.
I'll definitely give this service a try. Does anyone know of any other premium rails screencast sites? I recall a link to a funny rails article on HN about a month ago that was created by a guy who does premium rails cast for $9/mo (the site has a really dark background). Wasn't able to dig that up after a weekend of searching.
RailsCasts gets recommended to beginners a lot but every time I go there I'm kind of overwhelmed and have no idea where to start. The archives go back to 2007 so starting at the beginning seems likely to cover outdated subjects now. On the front page I see Draper, Spork, Sorcery, Foreman, Pry... none of this means much to me.<p>Any suggestions on how to attack this for a relative newbie to rails?
I'm so glad to see the outpouring of users who are downright happy to pay for this service. Ryan: you should add a payment option that lets people pay more than $9 per month. Let us specify the amount. I'd gladly pay more if it meant you could spend more time producing content.
I kind of saw this coming when I got an email from Ryan that he is cutting down on moderators for Railscasts. I was one of the lazy ones :(<p>Anyways, I'm going to subscribe not just for future episodes but for all those episodes from which I've gained immense knowledge.
I would guess Ryan used <a href="https://stripe.com" rel="nofollow">https://stripe.com</a> to set up reoccurring billing for Pro.<p>So will we be seeing an episode or maybe an advanced episode on how Ryan set up reoccurring billing for Railscasts?
RailsCasts is awesome, I owe so much more then $9 per month to it.<p>But here in China, many young students will still think it is too much...bad bad bad, anybody can do a less pro one, and make it free?
For some reason, RailsCasts.com is not loading up at all for me. Am I the only one seeing this?
If it helps, I am using Chrome 14.0.835.186 on a Mac OSX Snow Leopard.
I wonder why Ryan is not blocking access to the source code for pro screencasts on github. Other pro screencasts such as peepcode protect the source code as well.
Rails 3.x jumped the shark. It is getting too complicated for anyone new to come on easily. This is the reason that Scala, Clojure, Haskell, etc. will fail, too- complexity. I'm not a PhP guy, but it isn't hard to see why it is still wildly popular. Make it easy enough, and fun to use, and it will take hold.<p>So while he may make money on Rails geeks that continue on and with those that want to learn, there are fewer that are coming on and will come on now then there were.<p>If you like Rails, listen to Ryan. I've been doing RoR a while and really, really appreciate the Railscasts (and the Asciicasts of his Railscasts- thanks Eifion!). But if you are looking for a long-term framework to stand by, keep looking.