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Spend a ton of hours getting google certificates as part of a program that will be cut within the next year or two with little notice or empathy towards folks that have put time into it.
Why should they? These are just a bunch of classes for people who want to learn some things. The only lie I see is promising a job for people who studies only 10 hours a week....for me it's not ,,a ton of hours''

Also of course don't pay for the certificates, IT education is already free.

what would you consider a ton of hours? sleep and work should take up 16/24h, 30m of daily exercise and at least 1h spent eating takes up 17.5/24, then at least an hour for changing, commuting, showering, miscellaneous cleaning gets you to 18.5/24h. I'd throw in another hour for most people as we're not robots who never waste time, so 19.5/24h. with 2h a day of studying you're up to 21.5/24h. That leaves 2.5h in theory, but normal humans also need time for errands, unexpected situations, family time, recreation, relaxation, chores, home economics, etc. Unless you have zero personal interests or personal life 10h/week is quite a lot of time for a regular adult.
We're talking about changing a job, and learning a new skill to get a new job. It's something a large amount of people spend 12+5 years 10 hours a day to prepare for, although quite inefficiently.

I may be not familiar enough of the situation in US, but to study for a new job, people generally make compromises: staying with the family so that they don't need to provide that much money, or still work, but let other people do the house cleaning. If a person has to do all of these and still study, generally there's no time left for fun/personal life, and they accept it as part of life.

Sadly most people with low income jobs in 3rd world countries that I know have a life like robots :(

nope, nope nope, do not want, do not need
On one hand the google python(2.6) class changed my life. On the other I wouldn't put any effort into a google run platform because i don't trust they wont lock me out without any recourse, or will even be around when they decide to focus on the new shiny thing.
This just seems like Google marketing rather than an interesting initiative. I took a look at the digital marketing module, which is relevant for me, and it seems to just be lessons on how to use Google’s own paid advertising features.

Not that I’d expect anything different, but curious if I’m missing anything interesting in there somewhere?

From their FAQ on the IT role, which likely isn't much different for anything else:

> Why did Google create this program?

> Google has long faced an issue that many other companies also contend with -- we had open IT support roles, and not enough qualified candidates to fill them. So, a few years ago we began working with a nonprofit organization *to provide training and pathways to roles in technical support at Google*. We learned that not only is IT support a highly teachable field, but that we could teach someone completely new to the industry the IT fundamentals in under six months. So, we decided to build an IT training program on Coursera, created entirely by Googlers who are expert in IT support so this training could be available to everyone.

This is just a way to funnel entry-level roles over to Google and/or use its services. Why pay people to learn on the job when you can have them pay you to learn before they have the job? :)