Some open thoughts on Duolingo $DUOL: It’s a fair and honest point to raise, and could be a good poll to add.

My view, candidly, is that people who are satisfied tend to be less inclined to respond to these polls or debates, so the sample is inherently skewed toward frustration.

If I may share my personal case: I am genuinely happy with my progress in a Balkan language I have been learning for a few months. It is not in Duolingo’s top 20 courses, meaning it is far less developed than English, French, German or even Chinese for example, and yet without Duolingo it would be remarkably difficult to find any structured learning path for it at all, because, as we all know, everything is online now and Duolingo barely has a reason to exist on paper.

What I mean is that I will never enter into a debate about whether people are happy or unhappy with the product. I don’t need to convince anyone. What I do know is that complainers and unsatisfied users tend to amplify their voices, while real users, the ones reflected in the numbers, simply keep engaging more. Duolingo stated in Q4 that 85% of the global daily active user base across language learning apps sits on their platform. In some cases, like mine, there is simply no better alternative. Add on top of that the pace at which they are iterating, it will only improve. Your “hi/Mom” repetition problem will very likely be solved by personalization.

That said, I totally understand unhappy users. I have been there too, using this app since the early days, installed, uninstalled, frustrated, returned. But the progress they have made in keeping users motivated and deeply engaged is remarkable to me, I guess that is the reason of their existence. But for sure, this is only my honest view, I might be wrong, we all have different patterns, goals and expectations.