Online courses are a trend of today. Thanks to distance education, people can improve their skills, broaden their horizons or completely change their professions. In modern Russia, the institutionalization of distance education on online platforms is being implemented quite intensively, and many steps have already been taken in this area. In future, this trend will only intensify, as dynamic processes require constant training and advanced training which is certainly capable of implementing distance education. The purpose of this article is to describe the experience of youth participation in distance learning courses on commercial online platforms. The results of an empirical study showed the main motives for learning on online educational platforms: improving the fi nancial situation, "fi nding yourself", changing one`s profession, etc. The theory of P. Berger and T. Lukman that the process of institutionalization is preceded by the "familiarization" of any social practice, in our case, it is distance learning on online educational platforms, is also confi rmed. It was also revealed that the learning motives correlate with the goals. The important aspects of distance learning that directly affect the process of institutionalization are described.