I caught a random podcast with an early Duolingo employee who said all the same things: Much bragging about how they gamified their app to juice user engagement and growth, not even a feigned mention of optimizing for learning.
By now my friends who use Duolingo all know it’s a game, not a real learning experience. I think they got lucky and filled a void in the market for things people think they want (learning a new language) while avoiding the parts they dislike (the effort of learning).
It got recommended by default for years when people asked for an easy way to learn a language, but they leaned hard into the path of gamification instead of trying to improve the learning experience for those who wanted to learn.
By now my friends who use Duolingo all know it’s a game, not a real learning experience. I think they got lucky and filled a void in the market for things people think they want (learning a new language) while avoiding the parts they dislike (the effort of learning).
It got recommended by default for years when people asked for an easy way to learn a language, but they leaned hard into the path of gamification instead of trying to improve the learning experience for those who wanted to learn.