This is what you get with being growth-driven. They push gems and chests because that drives engagement. Duolingo was never meant to be the "best app for langua

This is what you get with being growth-driven. They push gems and chests because that drives engagement. Duolingo was never meant to be the "best app for language learning" the same way Facebook's isn't to be the most optimal social platform. Those were only the goals - selling points - when they were unknown, until they reached wide adoption. After that, the ball can be dropped, and you can start to bend the original product in any way you see fit to match your metrics, the only restriction being that the user can still identify with it. I really wonder if "software with a mission" can scale beyond non-profits, open source, few devoted maintainers and small niche markets.