LuoDingo 2024 Review from a legacy user (me)

I've been in an on and off again relationship with duolingo for a while, and I feel like the more I come back to it, the worse it gets. This is a textbook example of enshitification, although it's not like the app was super good to begin with. While I do miss the tree style and the ability to study a topic you want when you want to (granted it was available), the path is somewhat streamlined and if you don't like a topic you can just skip it - and I would highly recommened you do because most of the apps content is bog water.

I find that the app does not respect your time in the slightest. The removal of many good features, such as the forums and the guides being generally bad for any language not in the top 5, that it becomes vastly inefficient to use over anything else. I have made much more progress in germanic languages by watching youtube with google translate on my second monitor than I have using duolingo as a resource. It really is like a wasted breath. Effort that could be spent elsewhere.

The pros: Mostly free (can set up a classroom to avoid ads and get some premium features), good at teaching scripts, can be a good way to test the waters with a language you have a passing interest in.

The cons: Doesn't respect your time, bloated (I hate the streak stuff as it doesn't do a thing for me, hate the leaderboard so I turn it off, dislike the monthly challenges and the achievments and all that shite, etc), other resources do more, enshitification due to profits taking precedence over all else, the removal of pfps for lame avatars due to laziness to not moderate, the removal of good features due to the laziness to not moderate, etc.

tl;dr - it "fell off" as the kids say because of greed and I don't see it getting better. It was a good run mr green owl, but I no longer see you as anything more than a testing ground that lasts a week before I move to better things.