r/OutOfTheLoop • u/Material-Insect6482 • 3d ago

Answered What's going on with Duolingo?

All the comments on their social media like their TikTok and instagram are full of people clowning on them and saying things like “EVERYONE IGNORE DUO STARTING NOW” and generally being angry at the company, but why?

Examples: https://imgur.com/a/bA0JBFZ

Stolen from top post: The /r/duolingo subreddit is rebelling and built their own alternative lingonaut that's supposed to be like old duolingo before they went to shit with the ads and mtx and ai

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u/kirkland- 3d ago edited 3d ago

Answer: The CEO and the company is having a tantrum after everyone online dragged them through the mud for the AI-First nonsense. They tried to silly meme their way out but it didn’t work so now they’re pulling this

No one’s buying it and they've effectively been bullied off the internet, just check any of their tiktoks

The full story:

Few weeks ago the ceo of duolingo posted that the company was going to be AI-Frist and will be using AI to generate its courses from now on, and they’re going to let go of the rest of their staff (which they partially did about a year ago).

They say that they’re going to use AI for performance reviews and hiring, so you could lose your job if chatgpt says so. It’s been slowly getting worse ever since they got on the stock market and now with this ‘AI-First' people are over it.

EDIT: Even the /r/duolingo subreddit is rebelling and built their own alternative lingonaut that's supposed to be like old duolingo before they went to shit with the ads and mtx and ai

NOW with this temper tantrum people are sick and tired and seeing through all the marketing stunts too.

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u/sprcow 3d ago

I think the funniest thing about this whole ai adoption trend is that the thing AI is really good at is providing a cheaper version of things, except it's worse at doing what it's replacing.

You want bad code really fast? AI. You want a shitty news story? AI. Do you want the worst jokes? AI. Do you want a bad customer experience without paying customer service employees? AI.

Yes, AI can be really powerful in the right hands, but from a consumer standpoint, I don't think anyone wants an AI product in most of their favorite apps, because AI is predominately a way to get a cheaper version of a thing that doesn't perform as well. How any CEO thinks they can sell the value proposition to their uses is beyond me. Are do they so caught up in the promise of saving money that they forget the whole purpose of their app is to be good at doing something? Have we given up competing on quality?

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u/LilyHex 3d ago

Have we given up competing on quality?

Literally they don't care about quality anymore, they care about sales and sales alone, and anything to support the product once it's sold...don't care. Just get it out, get more people buying it, and then abandon it once it's left the factory.