Yeah but not everything is negative about it tho, look at the good side of it, even if there is some mistakes it doesn't make it necessarily a bad app, i am grateful that such free tool is available actually, it helps a lot, people need to pay money generally to learn new languages, doulingo made it possible to learn for free.

Just unsubscribed from duo, after a 1500 day streak, and 8 years being a paid member

Sent them this email

Just reaching out to let you know why, after years of subscription and a 1500 day streak, why I finally intentionally broke my streak and unsubscribed

I joined early on, like 10+ years ago, and loved the weirdness of early Duolingo to learn Spanish, I ame and went, but always spread the gospel

But over the last 3-4 years, duo has been showing the enshitifcation more and more. Going from a fun system to this entierly linear system, changes to the unpaid energy system, removal of comments and the forum

Then, recently, pushing Duolingo max, removing practice for a max button, a service I don't have, ever increasing of AI slop, removal of paid volenteers.

I really loved duo, but hate to see it in this sad state. I loved learning a second language, and would continue to pay for it, but it's clear you no longer view your self as a language platform, but just a way to make a quick buck

Duo would cry if he could.

Wow thats fucking dumb lol

(PSA you can patch the app with revanced and just use an old version of the app pre-ai with no ads)

When it stops working I'll figure out something else to use but language learning has been a background thing with my friend who knows the language better, so I don't really wanna sit down and try out new stuff for the moment

Cancelled my sub last year when they announced they were going to make their service worse by doing it with chatbots

That would maybe indicate the adds weren't cutting it, and they have to juice you for a direct payment.

Did not know they were liste on the stock market - I guesa that explains why they turned to shit.

But anyway, the title makes it seem like the drop was because they lost users or smth ( or due to the AI-first bullshit ) but no, they grew and their revenue grew, it just didn't grow enough. Line did not go up as high as the investors wanted so they lost faith. Man, fuck this system

The AI-first certainly isn't helping

They also recently changed their life meter, which just feels like a weird move. Now instead of having 5 hearts that only deplete when you get a wrong answer they have an energy meter that slowly goes down whether you're getting questions right or wrong

Which feels like a really weird choice for a business model that I assume gets a lot of money from showing ads.

With the hearts I could keep doing lessons forever as long as I wasn't getting them wrong and they could keep showing me ads the whole time

Now after a while I'd just bottom out the energy meter and then I just can't keep going

Obviously it's an attempt to get people to pay for a subscription, maybe it works to get people to do that, but I know there was no circumstance where I'd ever pay for it.

I've been thinking about ditching Duolingo for a while over the AI thing, but I'm really damn close to the end of my course and I kind of planned to just finish it out then delete my account. I may just ditch it early now.

Looks like the AI-first strategy is really working out for them

I’m testing scenaria nowadays to help on the speaking skills

Please share if you do! I started learning Japanese on Duolingo but I gave up when they added more and more payment tiers.

Scientists say they have almost added every animation and effect that the marketing department predicted would help students learn

My eyes rolled so hard they fell off.

This is beautiful mockery. The app has become so trash, more animation coupled with more errors in the actual language material itself. I barely do one lesson a day because I'm hooked by the streak. I really need to find another app.

I'd probably watch it. 😁

I want a Duolingo Movie

I patched a version with ReVanced manager a while back and just haven't updated cause it sounds like things have gotten a looot worse 😅

I'd love them to spend even 1% of their zany marketing budget on improving the actual course content. 😬

I'm even trying a free trial of Max at the moment and... the video calls with Lily that now make up about 50% of the course (on Japanese, at least), are so useless. The questions seem totally random, there's no natural flow to anything.

Lily: Hello.
Me: Hello.
Lily: (long pause)
Lily: Hello.
Lily: (long pause)
Lily: Do you like coffee or tea?
Me: I like coffee, you?
Lily: (long pause)
Lily: Is that so? I also like coffee. Is Toronto lively today?
Me: (?!?) Um... yes, it's lively?
Lily: (long pause)
Lily: Is that so? OK, let's talk again soon!
Me: See you later.
Lily: (long pause)
Lily: See you later.

And then it doesn't even give me any feedback about how I did??? It's bewildering, who's paying £20/month for this?

This is giving off massive cosmic horror vibes.