Duolingo stock plunges as company prioritizes user growth

I've got a 2400+ day streak going on Duolingo. I used to love the app, it really helped me relearn the Spanish I used to know from my youth. The app is a far cry from what it used to be. I can't stand the goofy animations and characters they've added to everything – the weird gigachad Duo or anime girl Duo, what is going on here? I want something that doesn't treat me like a child clapping at Saturday morning cartoons each time I correctly spell a word.

My yearly subscription ends in December, I plan to let my streak lapse at that point and finally move on to Babel.

I read a lot of reviews of people really unhappy about the change to the "energy system" (basically their lever to control how much content can be consumed before the paywall pops up), and it sounds pretty heavy handed. I can't comment on that since I'm a paying user, but for me as someone heavily immersed in learning a second language, this plus the changes that made the immersive gamified elements like audio positive reinforcements way too intense, I'm all-in on other learning aids like Anki or Babbel. I also liked how with Rosetta Stone there's a different focus on how you engage with the learning - the cards that appear require cultural context focusing (such as inferring the correct tense based on the calendar shown in the card) that add to that immersive variety and challenge. Duolingo is really just a low-effort mobile game as the popular argument goes.

I also tried an app that was going AI first with agents and feedback (Langotalk) but since I used it 6 months ago I felt like it still lacked the polish and thoughtfulness to make it worthwhile. But that would be the game-changer for immersive learning.

I left when they decided to lay people off and use AI as translators and to make lessons.

> KeyBanc analyst Justin Patterson downgraded shares sector weight from an overweight rating as the company’s focus on long-term product initiatives weighs on near-term growth and valuation.

> He wrote that “meaningful financial benefits” from these initiatives could take “several quarters” to materialize.

It's kind of beyond parody that you can grow revenue 41% YoY and people still complain that you're doing anything at all with a horizon as long as 6-9 months.