Content delivery is getting cheaper. Websites are getting better. Users are getting more accustomed to the weirdness of receiving education this way.
You have to pick your punches, though. It's a lot easier teaching something like history online than something requiring physical feedback, say, yoga or maybe drawing. But a generation of online games players are actually pretty used to the sort of feedback that turns a virtual classroom into something more than a glorified television set. Who is not used to it are the professors - I have a dear friend whose daily struggle with the mechanics of running a minimal computerized A/V setup is a real challenge for him. The educators are needing to be educated first.
It isn't the future, it's the present. Personally I like the intimacy of a classroom, but it means that I have to get there. The low here will be 1 degree Fahrenheit this evening with -28 wind chill. My computer is in a nice warm room with beer handy. Online education sounds pretty good in those circumstances.
Thank you very much for that. I do note though, that if it is the present, as you have said, than that suggests it is not going to entirely replace classroom teaching since in the present, primary education is still overwhelmingly done face to face. In addition, as I noted initially, colleges in the present still have many more students who want the full classroom experience than they know what to do with.
I supported one of the popular course capture systems when they were getting off the ground. It got its start because they enrolled more students than than the lecture hall could hold. Crappy weather would be a perfect use for such a system and was used while I was maintaining it..