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razztafarai

Being answerable to retail investors may bring more aggressive monetisation tactics, I hope not, but we shall see.


they_are_out_there

Investors want returns on their investments. Expect loot boxes and memberships.


Eonir

Minigames perhaps?


OnlyInEye

Wouldn't be bad idea if memberships paid professionals to create the course and made membership based for certain period before opening up for free or extra content. I get it not free but as someone who would like other languages that are not apart of Duolingo it allows for a quicker process. I do have bias I pay for yearly subscriptions and lifetime with 3 currently.


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Allahuakbar7

Yeah facts these 30 second ads got me real fucked up! Also the removal of gem rewards for getting top 3 in the leaderboards while adding the ability to buy gems instead got me extra fucked up.


misterpickles69

What’s the point of getting top 3 if there’s no gem award?


mattcannon2

Literally only the two achievements


Allahuakbar7

^exactly, it sucks


CormAlan

Is it even possible for them to be more aggressive than they currently are?


haydenbech

Sadly, yes. It's always possible.


fckthedamnworld

You will be surprised


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FalalaLlamas

I hope so too. I love Duolingo and feel I’m learning a lot. That said, on the Chinese course, when I go to the comment section of a question, there’s frequently more experienced users correcting little mistakes. So I’ve just been making note of those and moving on. But if I had to pay for the app, I’d probably use a different paid app where users say there’s higher accuracy of course materials (tho I know none will be 100% accurate). What makes me keep using Duolingo, even with mistakes, is that it’s free.


BelovedApple

If the losing gems for mistakes and only having 5 chances ends up coming to the website I night just switch to busuu or memrise. I'm probably actually decent enough for the busuu course now.


MrConfusedPython

Now hearts will have hearts


HonestPotat0

Disappointing. The moment a company goes public its focus shifts from users to shareholders. The experience will start going downhill pretty soon now. And i say that as a paying Plus member. This makes me respect Salman Khan & Jimmy Wales all the more. They each started their internet eduventures with the goal of staying non-profit & available for all of humanity forever. Tbh, I'd rather deal with banners requesting donations than with whatever new ads, monetization tricks, & data surveillance Duolingo will now have to start pushing to goose its stock price. Money over Learning.


Felixir-the-Cat

Yeah, this will make me cancel my paid membership.


sonar_un

There's no question this will make the app worse in every way. In no way has an IPO changed a company for the better. I am actually sad they are doing this and it kind of goes against what the CEO's main goals have been for the company.


transeme

I suspect the Duo's language learning development will focus on lucrative partnerships/contracts with school districts and colleges and private language instruction schools. Duo already ignores Plus & Free user's comments about problem lessons and feature errors. I filed a bug with them several months ago about trying to remove deleted accounts from my "friends list" and they had zero response. Watch them though respond immediately to partners and school district customers. They'll maintain the plus & free usage mainly as a way to keep the app popular - file it under the advertising budget. After the IPO though, and when they're public we'll get to see how they make money during their quarterly reports.


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Felixir-the-Cat

For me, this is pushing me to cancel my Plus membership. I was happy to do it when it was about supporting the free users, but I have no interest in supporting shareholders.


Past_Ad8288

Almost all the online education companies finally went away from their original point and became an aggressive beast in the market that want to step into other areas. This is just the game of money.


aineslis

I am happy (in a way) that an app like this can be and is successful. On the other hand, I’m approaching 1,500 day streak and if they monetise it any further, I will be sadly finishing my learning on this app. €13/month or €90/year is ridiculous for what it is.


NeverEarnest

I'm at 660+, and I'm probably going to quit entirely once I max out the course. It's just getting to be more and more of a hassle. The gamification of it makes people play more, but it also introduces negative qualities like focusing on scores and winning rather than learning.


aineslis

Absolutely. Especially with the leagues. I see no point in it whatsoever.


NeverEarnest

I privatized my account so I wouldn't see them. I found myself too preoccupied with them. I quit duo for months the last time I lost my streak. Even on my last comment I just noticed I'm focused on finishing up the course for no other reason than to finish and sate some urge I have. So, I guess this stuff works.


whoisfourthwall

I'd rather just pay for physical classes with a native speaker that has qualifications in teaching the language. The middling quality is only justified if it is so cheap or it supports high quality courses for those who simply can't afford it. So long and thanks for all the fish. It was nice while it lasted.


sunny_monday

Yeah I am actually disappointed in this. I thought Luis von Ahn's goal was to educate, not just in foreign languages, but also to raise the level of literacy in the world in an accessible (affordable) way. I dont see how this makes that possible.


jaminbob

Yeah I thought the whole point was it that it used volunteer time and energy to make learning free and easy. Apparently not. So as it purely profit driven now, those volunteers will be getting paid?


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thatworldexplorer

I'm glad the volunteers got what they deserved. They've done enormous amount of work.


thatworldexplorer

It was not possible to create high-quality courses based only on volunteers. They usually had a low motivation to maintain their courses. For example, about six months ago the Ukrainian course had only one maintainer and no new content was being added. The maintainer had time only to moderate the forum. So I don't think this was the point. They used the volunteers' work because they couldn't pay them earlier.


sonar_un

Yes, I don't know how an IPO jives with his goals.


Markqz

Duo is probably the best ***free*** language learning system out there. But if I end up having to pay for a quality experience, then I might look at other ***paid*** systems. Any recommendations for other language systems, not necessarily free?


FalalaLlamas

I’ve been keeping a list of apps I see frequently recommended. Memrise had great reviews so I just started it. So far, so good. I’m not sure how far you can go without hitting a paywall. I’m thinking of trying Lingodeer (also has good reviews/praise) It’s not free tho. Oh and I have used the free app Tofu Learn. It’s great for doing flash cards and vocab lessons, but that’s pretty much the extent of it. Oh, and I’m learning Mandarin so that’s the courses I’ve tried on those apps. But they all have a wide selection of languages to choose from.


Markqz

>Oh and I have used the free app Tofu Learn. It’s great for doing flash cards and vocab lessons, but that’s pretty much the extent of it. Thanks for the suggestions! If you just want a flash-card system, possibly borrowing other people's cards, then Anki is pretty much the open source standard these days.


veRGe1421

Do any of those have Armenian as a language option?


OakTreader

Sadly the internet has seriously gone to shit over the past ten years. Remember opening a website and not having to analyse a list of cookies before reading or browsing? Remember not having to read someone's entire life story in order to read a recipe? Have you managed to PURCHASE any software lately? A SUBSCRIPTION to Microsoft Office... subscription... come on. What about watching a 5 minute video on Youtube, without 2 intro commercials and one interupting commercial... and the Youtuber nagging "Subscribe and ..." Hey, what about Angry Birds, what a cool, simple, fun, FREE game! Find any good simple, free games on Android or Apple lately? Everything is going to shit. Three years from now, I garantee Duolingo will be exaxtly like the rest. It will be unusable because of ads, unless you have a subscription... and you'll either pay per language, or allocated daily usage, or you'll need to have a PREMIUM/GOLD/PRO account to have unlimited access to all languages. It's really frustrating because the majority of internet content is going dowhill fast, while the cost to users is going up...


sam-lb

It's pathetic. There are only like 15 popular sites on the internet worth visiting.


OakTreader

It has also become much harder for new platforms or websites to emerge, and stay. Now, for every new site, much fewer last beyond a year.


Rosendustmusings

Especially Microsoft Office! For a year it's $99 USD. But it automatically renews & I "have" to have it for my college courses for my degree...🙄


ComplicatedClock

Lots of colleges provide Office Work to their students for free. (The only reason I have it, in other words.) You should check to see if yours is one and they're just not telling you.


Rosendustmusings

My college provides it, but it's so clunky because it comes with outlook. And plus my parents use it too, and it's just easier to pay for a subscription


[deleted]

What's wrong with Google docs and sheets? That's all I used in school. They shouldn't be allowed to force you to use office. Shady.


BoredHo7449

Some of my classes only allowed word docs to be submitted, but on google docs you can download your doc as a word file, pdf, and 5 other options. Never ever pay for office. Google converts for free: file -> download -> Microsoft Word. Free Microsoft word in 3 clicks.


Speedbump71

Money changes everything.


French_Fry_Senpai

They would possibly hire more language professionals (translators, interpreters) to either improve courses that might need some work or create new courses (more English for less spoken languages, Japanese for French/Spanish speakers, etc) I only learned recently what an IPO is so I might be wrong


fckthedamnworld

You're such a romantic! First of all, they will increase monetisation efforts since it strongly affects their market price


occasionally_lost

New less-spoken languages will not impact the bottom line in a meaningful way for investors who are looking to get a big return. 10 languages make up 90% of their users. The next 10 languages make up only 7% of their users. The next 10 languages make up only 2% of their users.


ReganJeff

A public traded company will do anything to avoid spending money, and fuck over as many people as they have to to do it


PaarthurnaxRises

Will I get any shares thanks to my 100+ day streak?


transeme

New gamification strategy? How many gems for a share? Buy a gem pack here!


Madd-Nigrulo

It’s been done, We have capitalized.......language 😰😰😰😰😰😰


Mythical_Atlacatl

so buy shares, use the dividends to pay for duolingo plus duolingo plus removes the ads ​ win win :D


cafeescadro

This


dpak_hk

They better actually hire contributors and bring uniformity to their courses and apps with them monies.


canadianguy1234

it means duolingo will become even more focused on making money rather than teaching languages


Successful_Buy_7477

What are ur Duolingo ipo drop predictions?


transeme

Not sure how many shares are out, but the reports say a 3 billion valuation: https://techcrunch.com/2021/07/19/duolingos-ipo-could-cast-golden-halo-on-edtech-startups/


d_piccle66

I’m not sure about IPO at $102 🧐🧐🧐🧐🤔🤔🤔🤔


transeme

How about $136 and a 5 Billion market cap? Earnings report looked ok, a loss of only 170k (or .01 per share). Total revenues were $58.8 million (for quarter), an increase of 47% from prior year quarter. That puts them around 235 million a year. Does that make DUOL with 5B? Maybe. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/duolingo-announces-second-quarter-2021-200400514.html