What's the point of ads on Duolingo now?

[Daniel589120]

I have just noticed that I am seeing less ads on Duo.

This is probably due to the fact that most ads are visible on the DISCUSSION pages!

Since they have locked all sentence discussions (what is the point of them now) and of course have eliminated the forums, I don't really see that many ads any more!

True you can see some ads at the top of some of the other pages like the Learn page and the Store page, but I normally scroll down the learn page and never see the ad and there is no reason to regularly visit the "Store" since there is nothing really there to "buy", as a consequence my ad experience has been drastically curtailed!

I am in the French course and recently I was getting more and more ads that were in French exclusively, I was actually looking at and carefully reading these ads as part of my learning experience.

With the latests "improvements" to the Duo site, will they realize that they simply cannot generate ad revenue unless they put in pop-ups or even impose that banner on the bottom of every page that interfered with their own presentation?

What do you think?

[Deleted User 1400]

As a user of the Android App I was quite sure that most ads were shown there.. exactly one after each lesson, so super annoying. But the in-app access on the sentence related discussions had none. How many did you get in the "normal" discussion board or learning section accessed via browser?

[Daniel589120]

How many did you get in the "normal" discussion board or learning section accessed via browser?

Sandra, there was normally one ad under the search bar in each discussion page.

If you had plus, that search field and the ad were no longer there.

Now, with the discussions locked, there is no search bar but we still have the ad field.

But the discussions are locked and you can't comment.

You can't give or receive lingots as well.

All you can do is up/down vote the comments.

Since I can't ask a question or report that my answer was accepted or report that Duo had accepted one of my answers that I had previously submitted, then I really have no need of the sentence discussions!

As a consequence I am seeing far few ads, I think for most people using the site through the browser this would be the case.

[LICA98]

well there's no reason for them to stop putting ads is there? the more ads the more revenue (and for me it's not really an issue as I'm using an ad blocker anyway)

[HeyMarlana]

I can't say for sure how Duolingo chose to do business with their advertisers, but I can say that most advertisers are on a contract. That being said, how long their contracts would have been before things changed is a better question.

Back in early February, Duolingo made their announcement that the forums would close about six weeks later, giving advertisers that much notice, if not more behind the scenes.

They may have naturally come to the end of the term, been reimbursed, or offered to transfer their package to the mobile version. But it gets tricky with online services because I know that my desktop ads were based on my browsing habits. Either way, someone had to pay for that space, and that loss of space would have to be reimbursed or in the business we say "made good" with other areas to be viewed (in another way).

There will always be ads though. No workaround for that one unless you are a paid member -- as part of the perks to have the ads removed.