Is it me? Or is Duolingo experiencing mission creep and drifting more toward profit-driven goals and away from Luis von Ahn's original mission to offer everyone a chance for a free language education: "no hidden fees, no premium content, just free."
The mission above comes directly from Duolingo's "About Us" page. However, Super Duolingo is the epitome of a premium content service, one gives Duolingo money to gain convenience benefits, notably removing distractions and time consuming activities that don't advance learning.
Duolingo prides itself in advancing machine learning science development. The past month has been pretty wild for Duolingo redesign. Gone are the trees, replaced with a path with a supposedly individually tailored learning path based on an individual's progression through a course. The rationale behind this is the old tree system didn't force structured learning. Students were free to bounce around and learn material as they chose. The path now forces you to learn in a set progression. This is a bad model since it forces linear learning upon every, thus assuming that people learn in linear fashion. The old model allowed for layered learning. When one was becoming frustrated in a skill, they could move to another until they were ready to return to the other challenge. The upside to that was advancement through the course.
I admit that since the change to the path model, I have not advanced in Duolingo. I have been stuck at the first lesson in Unit 53 for over a month.
Of course one can lay blame on me for not taking the time to push through the level. I'm not going to challenge that.
However, I will point out that Duolingo is becoming very good at becoming a predatory model for commerce. While there are people out there who don't deal with highly competitive obsessive-compulsive ADHD behavior, some do. Duolingo's business model is demonstrating that it can capture revenue from these types.
I noticed today that Duolingo removed the three-heart attempts to complete a unit legendary trophy challenge level. Actually, it was a two attempt feature because the third heart was your last try to pass the level. The two-attempt feature was useful since it allowed you to correct a mistake in this challenge. At least for me. Duolingo admits that it runs betas using live students as test subjects. Maybe I'm simply a test for this new "teaching strategy."
I can see the logic in removing the hearts. It commands absolute focus on the part of the learner. One must not only ensure the correct translation of a passage, but also be absolutely certain that there are zero keystroke entries in the answer. The three-heart model was good because it allowed for input entry. I often was correct in translation, but erred in transcription, especially when typing via iPhone. The hearts allowed me to reattempt the transcription error.
Again, the new zero-tolerance policy is useful for forcing absolute attention to the lesson. However, it overlooks the learner's ability to keyboard. I find I spend more time entering an answer that I do with reinforcing the lesson. I used to complete a challenge level in about 7 minutes when I was allowed two transcription errors. I noticed that the new model requires more than 15 minutes to complete since I need to ensure that I entered my response correctly. I spend more time keyboarding than I do learning.
The new "model" is predatory in that in lieu of hearts, I can now "spend" 5 gems to keep advancing through the level. While 5 gems isn't much, one can burn through them quickly if they are having a rather distracted or fumble finger day. Of course, when one runs out of gems, they can buy more. This is just one of the predatory strategies Duolingo is doing that is driven for profit rather than its mission to offer everyone a chance for a free language education.
Duolingo capitalizes on competition.
The very first competitive strategy is the streak. I'm now up to 2194 days. It would be longer, but I was dumb in my early days and set my daily XP goal too high. Back then you lost a streak if you didn't reach your set daily goal. I would be up around 24-hundred days if I just kept my goal low back then. I'm glad they took that away. Just checking in for a quick lesson or story on a busy day has kept my streak alive this long.
There are some days when one simply cannot log on. Travel. Illness. Just need a day off. Streak freezes are a godsend here. This is where my gems are important. I use my gems to buy vacation days.
Duolingo attempts to use my competitive obsessive behavior to take my gems from me.
Have you noticed how long this post is? Yes, I know I have OCD and ADHD, and I'm very competitive. Fortunately I have been able to dissuade myself putting effort into reaching and parking myself in the Diamond League, instead placing more value into learning my language and putting my effort there rather than trying to get XP just to "win." But every now and then I do find myself getting to the top of a league, which means that I earn gems. And I need gems to buy streak freezes.
Duolingo openly admits that the Leagues are based on the theory that competition motivates learning. Very Western value. Competitive rather than cooperative learning. Of course getting a high-five or celebration from a friend for an accomplishment is a cooperative model, Duolingo doesn't put as much effort into it since cooperation doesn't sell gems, except when you want to give some away as a gift to a partner to motivate them to contribute to a Friend Quest.
I turned off my Friend Quest. I'm not sure how Duolingo's algorithm works here, but I keep getting stuck with social loafers. Perhaps the theory is that I being a high XP performer will motivate those who check into the game only once or twice per week. It's clear that whoever designed that strategy is unfamiliar with the concept of social loafing.
Streak Freezes are one way to sell gems. The other is the Powerup challenge. This is when one is encouraged to earn XP by completing timed activities. This is a arcade game hook-em strategy. Entice a high reward, but make it mechanically impossible to complete the challenge, however one can "buy" extra time with gems.
Again, for me, gems mean streak freezes.
But being competitive, I'm tempted to surrender my precious gems just to get the small rush one gets when the arcade game pays out. Albeit, in XP, which don't earn you many gems.
I have been good at stopping the arcade game when I can no longer complete the "challenge" in the allotted time.
The newest strategy however has motivated me to spend the past hour writing this discussion post. I hope that others see it and pass the word that Duolingo is starting to become unethical as it drifts away from its original goal to bring the world closer together by enabling multi-linguistic communication and instead just going for the money.
The Legendary Trophy Trap
When Duolingo started, the goal was to get gold and keep your eggs from cracking. That was the old Tree model. Then Duolingo sought to up the ante and proclaim you as "legendary" if you could complete a challenge testing language comprehension. The logic here is sound, Duolingo seeks to align teaching to achieve Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) for language comprehension. You can evaluate where a learner is on CEFR scale by challenging them through a "Legendary" test.
The problem here is that under the old Tree model, I had almost every preceding level as purple. I had only three more eggs to transform before I had all purple up to my current progress -skill- level. When Duolingo switched to the path, I ended up being purple all the way to Unit 48. However, I'm currently at Unit 53 for my next lesson. Everything prior is supposedly a review. Fortunately I was able to screenshot the open lessons I had in my old Level 4 under the Tree system and I've discovered that lessons I had not covered in the old Tree are now behind my current level. That is, there are material I didn't learn in the levels preceding Unit 53.
Being OCD and competitive, I am compelled to challenge myself and turn Units 49 to 53 purple. This is done at the sacrifice of not studying Unit 53. This was no problem since I used to have two attempts to complete each of the 8 levels in the Unit Level Ups. But now it's a big problem since a single error will cost me gems, gems I need to ensure a healthy stock of streak freezes should I need to take a break or find myself offline for a day or two.
I already pay Duolingo a twice-yearly subscription fee. The new one-shot attempt isn't a motivator. It's a time sink since I now must be hyperdiligent on my keystroke skill rather than focus on retaining the language skill I want to learn. Again, gems mean streak freezes, and keystrokes can cost gems.
The logic behind this change doesn't fit learning behavior. One doesn't learn by encountering barriers. As a university professor, I'm rather familiar with learning science. As a worker and leader behavior scientist, I'm familiar with motivation theory. Duolingo's current change to charge 5 gems to advance in a test is a punishment, not a reward. It's a demotivator.
Whatever learning design team decided to remove the hearts and charge gems needs to learn about motivation theory and unintended consequences.
Whatever business management team decided to remove the hearts and charge gems needs to be lauded for finding a revenue opportunity.
Leadership however, needs to all the great press that was written about Duolingo in their early years. About how their mission was good and laudable. And they need to study companies that drifted away from good and went for the money. Theranos is a good example.
As for me, I need to work hard to not get sucked into trying to get all purple. My reason for jumping onto Duolingo in the first place was to be able to learn a specific language that had eluded me for decades. Duolingo actually taught me this language to a point, and I was advancing through it until the purple levels, which forced me to start all over again.
What I've learned is that I need to change my standards for achievement. Acquire the nuances of the language I'm learning and dismiss the artificial value of purple levels.
I caution others to pay very close attention to whether or not Duolingo today is teaching you a language, or forcing you to be hypercompetitive.