First off, a massive thank you to Jeffrey, Jeremy and other Laracasts tutors. The free courses on YouTube and this platform have taught me a lot. Both in PHP/Laravel, and programming in general.
I live in Turkey, and as an unemployed student it's really, REALLY difficult for me to justify the membership fee. On one of the tutorials I recently watched on youtube - it was either the PHP for beginners, or 30 days to learn Laravel - Jeffrey said "it's just sandwich money" about Laracasts membership. And I'm not gonna lie it hurt a bit. Laravel is a global community, but the global economy doesn't run on US dollars.
With the current exchange rate sitting around 1 USD to 45.5 TRY, the pricing creates a massive barrier. Here is a quick comparison using Spotify to show how localized pricing changes things:
Spotify Premium (US): $12.99/mo
Spotify Premium (Turkey, with localized pricing): 99 TRY
Laracasts Monthly (No PPP or localized pricing): $15/mo = 682 TRY
In short: A month of Laracasts costs nearly 7 times more than a month of Spotify Premium here. To put that in perspective for US users, it's like paying $90 for a month of Laracasts subscription.
And Turkey is just one example, I've met many people online, from different countries like Kenya, Egypt and Pakistan who feel the same way. For us, it is nearly impossible to justify this cost, despite how much we want to support the platform (while not going broke) and learn from some of the best teachers in the ecosystem. Because if it was "sandwich money" for us too, we wouldn't think twice.
Do you have any plans to implement localized pricing or regional discounts in the future to make Laracasts more accessible to developers across the world?
