My impression has been that Coursera is really about applying Socrate's (or is it Aristotle's) dream: free classical education for all.

Learning about Final Cut Pro is great, but getting classes on general machine learning ( at least ones that are worth more than a 2000 word blog post) generally require going to a school with a 5 digit price tag. I think Coursera and Lynda aren't trying to compete with each other on that end.