Linguistics

I read through the article, and while I don't use Duolingo, I'm not sure if the tulip analogy works one to one with your depression of Duolingo.

The point of the tulip crash was that there was perceived value that was completely detached from the actual value. The most common modern reference points that people point to are the meme stocks (GME and the like) and NFTs/crypto. People were buying, selling, and trading on hype.

The corporate pressure to wring money out of the users is just the "duty to shareholders" that every corporation pushes all year round. Rent seeking is frustrating, but it's nothing unique to Duolingo. Choosing to deprecate a section of their code, even if The Tree has benefits, is likely a long-term cost-saving measure. It's quite possible that they looked at a graph and said "We can continue to sink man-hours into maintaining the tree and adding to it when new lessons come along, or we can utilize those resources elsewhere in a way that has a more perceivable effect." It sucks, but as a business they need to look at averages and totals alongside their associated costs. If the choice was between maintaining The Tree but requiring some layoffs of their staff, and dropping The Tree and keeping staff,, I think dropping The Tree is better for the company. And the other alternative would be to rake in less profit, which just won't be done.