Wow, you've created a monster! :) Nine pages of replies and counting. It caught my attention because I've thought the same thing.
It's not just seminars, but it seems like any resource in general - books, courses, services, etc. For example, because of my business, I've seen quite a few people asking about websites, like 'is this service or that service worth the money,' and the majority of people always come back and say to try to do everything yourself, go the free route for everything, etc. But I've seen the same thing with books and courses. The majority of responses tend to be along the lines of 'don't pay for anything, try to get everything for free.'
I agree that if you're getting value from something, it's worth paying for. It's an investment in yourself. I pay for books and courses regularly. However, I definitely agree that there are a lot of scams out there and you have to be careful.
I went to one REI seminar a few years back where everyone there paid at least $10K (fortunately I was invited as a free guest). The whole weekend was just a pitch fest for a bunch of random things. One presenter would give advice that completely contradicted what another presenter said. At the end of it, all the people who paid to be there were more confused than when they arrived. I felt bad for everyone, especially knowing that most of those people put it on their credit cards. Just yesterday I was reading a post from someone who spent $30K on a seminar and still had no idea what to do or how to start investing. Crazy.
I think if you're just starting out and don't have general information about investing and the different techniques, you should not pay that kind of money, regardless of what's being promised. I say do a little research online to get familiar with what the different techniques of investing are and decide which one you want to focus on. Then buy a course that is highly spoken of. You can easily get all the knowledge you need for a couple hundred dollars. Then go do some deals using that knowledge.
Only after you've done at least a deal or two and have some income should you consider investing big bucks in a seminar, and only then if you've done your homework and talked to other people who have gone and know that it's going to teach you the specific information that will take you to the next level.
But again, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't invest in your REI education. Yes, there is some good information for free, but it tends to be scattered here and there and you have to piece it together yourself. If you have absolutely no money, fine, go that route. But I have no problem paying someone to give me the information I need in an organized, structured manner that makes it easy to digest and put the pieces together. That takes time and work, so someone should be compensated for that.
It does irritate me when someone asks for feedback on a particular service, product, seminar, etc. and people respond who have no experience with it and say not to buy it, just because it costs money. That's annoying. And I know that most of the people saying that have not done a single deal. So if you haven't bought whatever it is and you're not successful, why are you giving advice?
Multiple times I've replied to posts like that to disagree with someone saying things like that. I think maybe that's the solution. People are always going to say stuff like that. But if no one steps up and gives a conflicting opinion, people may assume it's accurate. If you speak up and say 'I disagree because...' then it gives people reading it another perspective and they can decide for themselves which makes the most sense.
