Two Kinds

Image borrowed from here.

With the quarter's close coming fast upon us, the time is near to figure out what classes we'll all be taking next quarter. For me, determining classes is an intricate process of balancing what's important to me about my class schedule.
I have obligations in life: school, work, friends, sports. I need to find classes that not only satisfy my long term scholastic goals, but also fit in with my short term time restrictions. For instance, I have work every weekday from 1-5. Every other day I need to have some free time in the evening or morning to go to Jiu Jitsu, and besides that I need time for my friends and family while they're awake and stuff is happening.
With all this in mind, I've decided to take the good majority of my classes online next quarter. Online classes offer me much needed flexibility. Other than that, the benefits can be argued both ways. When I tell people I'm taking online classes, I get one of two responses:

"Online Classes? That will be a breeze, you don't have to waste your time in class, you can do school whenever you want. Plus, open book tests? I might do that too."

"Online Classes!? I could never do that! You just keep putting it off and you can never bring yourself to actually do the work. Plus you don't have a teacher to help you and you have to do the reading. No thanks!"

I've already made it clear in previous posts that I'm a big fan of online classes, but an even bigger fan of the hybrid. It's untrue that you are necessarily deprived of teacher interaction just because your class is online. With today's technology there's always the option of personal messages and e-mail, and the teachers I've ran into online (for the most part) have been extremely involved. Then again that's not always the case, and there is something to be said for that "human touch" in a day and age where almost everything is becoming automated.
Are online classes easier? I'm not sure. For instance with that music class I've written extensively about, the tests were all open book. If you look at my quiz average for that class versus a physical english class, it was much higher for much less stress. Then again, I actually read all the material, and if the goal of a quiz is to make sure you're reading the material anyway... I think the online open book format accomplished that goal.
All this said, the reason there are two schools of thought, I believe, is because there are two generic factions of people. Some just will not do well in an online class. Faced with very long term deadlines, no distinct class time, and odd due dates/times, many people will just never get to their online class. It's not necessarily because they're lazy or apathetic, but they may lead overwhelmingly busy lives, and "online class" just becomes "more free time" to meet their other obligations.
The other faction seems to have the ability to treat an online class exactly the same as they do normal classes. They don't have a problem "attending class" regularly and keeping up with assignments. To them, there's no real difference between an online class and a classroom class.
I'm not really sure what causes this difference. Is it personality? Is it some past experience with technology? Regardless, I think that people who can take an online class and succeed display a distinct drive and motivation. I feel that some people don't take online classes seriously. A lot of students I talk to who give the first response of the two I provided above don't feel that an online class is legitimate. Because there's not four walls and a clock to stare at, an online class is somehow ... less. Yet these same people either don't try it, or fail if they do.
What do you think is responsible for the difference? Do you think online classes are indeed easier/harder? I'm confident that, in time, the outsider's view of online classes will change as drastically as the internet has changed the world.