This is what I always hated about school. My mind knows when it ready to take in certain kinds of information, but working on someone else's schedule leaves me trying to do just that at non-optimal times. The results end up being much poorer than when I'm able to control when learning happens.

With that said, I realize that everyone has widely different learning styles. Maybe these new digital classrooms have room for employing different techniques to personally cater to each and every individual?

Udcaity seems to have a course with deadlines and then then when that is completed the same course without deadlines.

You would just have to wait for the second run of any course to get the learn at your own pace track.

I took CS101 the first time around, which did have hard due dates. Now I'm in CS253 and the homeworks are much more flexible. They still have dates, but they are more for when the solutions are posted, and homeworks can be submitted after that. I think the actual grading will be on the final project. I like this method much better, as I have been in the same boat, falling behind because life gets in the way.

Great educational content is both intrinsically and extrinsically rewarding - it can be thoroughly stimulating and give you skills and knowledge you can use for the rest of your life. This is especially true in an age where transmission is free and where it's trivial to give the greatest professors/scholars a highly polished production that people can benefit from for years. I see time constraints doing a lot more harm than good here.