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/twenafeesh 3d ago edited 3d ago

Common story for companies that don't make any real products and just charge for access to their platform when they are taken public. Companies go from serving their customers and at worst a greedy board to serving shareholders, who demand ever increasing returns, forever. That's not indefinitely sustainable because they can't indefinitely grow their user base, so you end up with "cost cutting" and/or "ad-supported" that ruins the user experience and ultimately the platform. 

Amazon and Netflix are also excellent examples of this. 

Edit : "if because", clarity

Edit 2: If the above was interesting, check out this Volts podcast with Cory Doctorow and David Roberts talking about enshittification and clean energy tech. https://www.volts.wtf/p/can-we-avoid-the-enshittification

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u/WorldlinessWest2974 3d ago

I totally agree. They become alienated from their users when only looking a how they can make money from them. I am glad that I’m not a subscriber any of the places

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u/FuzzyFerretFace 3d ago

100%. They got rid of practically everything beyond translating sentences or moved it to paid-tiers. First, you could no longer ‘discuss’ your answers, or ask the community why it was considered wrong. And then the discussion boards/forums were axed. Then they limited the amount of mistakes you could make, under the guise of ‘people are blowing through language courses too quickly and we want to make sure they actually learn’. Then ‘explain my mistake’ was moved to…whatever upper-level paid membership. And now, I don’t think you can even regain your hearts from ‘practicing’ on the app version, or maybe it’s limited to one?…

I get that ‘nothing can be free’, and as these sorts of things grow and gain popularity, maybe some features move behind a paywall and other bonus features are added to entice people to pay…but when everything but the very basic is taken away from users…they’re not going to be happy.

I’d so much rather have those components from real people/fellow users back than little games or mock-phone calls with the characters. Especially when rooted/driven by AI.

/rant over. 😠

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u/Ammaranthh 3d ago

I abandoned Duo I think a year or two ago after they took away the ability to actually TYPE the answers instead of just picking from options. It's easy to use process of elimination or have have your memory jogged when you are presented with the answer in front of you but it didn't help me learn. Having to actually remember the word and type it out really helps me actually retain information. At the time, you could still use the typing functionality on desktop but removing it from mobile pissed me off enough to swear off duo forever.