this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2024
1146 points (98.9% liked)
Technology
59288 readers
4505 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I still had the app installed on my iPhone because I wanted to learn a new language a few years back. Just recently checked their App Store page and saw extensive data collection, monthly subscriptions and some kind of “gem” currency. Immediately deleted.
They tried to gamify the process, you use gems to buy an off day for a streak
Nothing against gamification, but when they added lives about two years after they said they never will I lost any and all trust I had in them.
The gems aren't as predatory as they seem.
They still seem like unnecessary garbage though.
The only truly useful thing you get from them is streak freezes (basically to keep your streak if you miss a day). I think they're fine.
lol learning a new language needs gems. Jesus fucking christ
That sounds hilarious.
But then you remember that people had been trying to learn a single language through their entire lives in ancient Rome, Egypt etc. We are indeed lucky to have gems gamifying the process.
I just don't know how I could ever accomplish anything in my life without the totally benign and helpful motivation provided by Gems™. They're gamerrific! ^Buy some today.^
Duolingo gems are only there to freeze your daily streak and join streak challenges. You don't need them.
Next is they'll hide half the sentence unless you pay 5 gems.
It's a for-profit company. The monthly subscriptions are so that the company makes money. The subscription gives you some extra features and removes ads. Seems pretty reasonable.
As for the gems, that's part of the gamification. You get gems just from doing lessons. You can spend gems on cosmetic things or on buying a "streak freeze" that lets you avoid losing your "learn every day" streak if you forget or otherwise can't use the app one day. Maybe you can buy gems too, I don't know, but they don't seem that awful. They're just nudges to try to keep using the app every day, and if your goal is to learn a language that's a good thing, right?
IMO gamification is good. Learning a language can be boring, especially when it comes to grammar lessons. Making it more entertaining means you're more likely to want to do it, so you're more likely to achieve your goal of learning another language.
Having said that, there is definitely enshittification going on. It used to be that the most of the program was available to people without a subscription, and only a few things were "paywalled". Now only the main path of the main course is not paywalled. It used to be that if you got bored with the lessons you were doing, you had alternative things you could do. Even the main lesson plan used to have optional paths. Now, unless you're subscribed the only two options are "stories" or the next lesson in the chain.
Since you took the time to leave such a lengthy response I’m going to reply, although the discussion here is pretty much over.
It’s not the single parts but the culmination of all three points; data harvesting, subscription and paid gems (yes you can buy more). Everyone has to make their own decision but for me it justifies never wanting to have anything to do with a company.