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Funny timing, as I just described Duolingo's recent trajectory as being an example of "enshittification" to someone who was angry that they have to do even more

Funny timing, as I just described Duolingo's recent trajectory as being an example of "enshittification" to someone who was angry that they have to do even more "quests" this month than any previous one, to earn the monthly badge (merely a fun thing on your profile to look back on). Gotta drive that engagement and keep users in-app as long as possible...

manvillej 3y ago
to be fair, practicing is a pretty essential component to learning a new language. "increasing engagement" also means more practice. Its not an entirely selfish motivation.
- ccooffee 3y ago
  I disagree in this case. Duolingo formerly had conversational language lessons, which were 100% audio (not even able to see text on screen). These were phenomenal for actually learning to speak <language>, compared to the generated garbage in the lessons. Duolingo formerly had lessons that explain new concepts, like a particular verb tense. It doesn't seem to have any of them once changing over the to completely linear lesson tree. I believe that Duolingo has fallen into a logical trap. They can easily track app engagement. It is known that regular practice is the key to learning a language, but they incorrectly forget the quality of the interactions. I've got my Duolingo 800 day streak still kicking, but I've learned almost nothing with the changes over the last year or so. I'm not terribly sure why I even use the app anymore, as there are plenty of anki decks with the same quality content. (The only thing I'd lose is the speech recognition, but that's so laughably bad that it reinforces incorrect pronunciation.)
  - forgotusername6 3y ago
    Their learning experience has got progressively worse with each update. Literally every time they do a major change to the UI they remove something useful. At the moment the tree is now divided into multiple sections. It used to be divided into concepts so I could choose what to learn about. Not really possible anymore. The only reason I am still using it is to preserve my streak. If I ever forgot and break it I'm pretty sure I'll just give up. It stopped teaching me a long time ago.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
andsoitis 3y ago
If someone gets angry about a badge in an app, it seems like they have a deeper issue to deal with.
- Nevermark 3y ago
  If badges motivated learners to do things that benefited them, but now (they feel) badges motivate behavior that benefits the app maker more instead … that would be a clear example of enshittification. Rule 34 needs a twin: Anything can be useful. Therefore, anything can be enshittified. And will be. Period dot period. QED. I have spoken.
  - vore 3y ago
    How can it be a "clear example" when it's subjective by your own admission ("they feel")?
    - Nevermark 3y ago
      I used that qualifier because I am taking their claim at face value. I have no independent way of confirming or confuting the facts. But if their assessment of the badge change is correct, then it is a valid case of enshittification.
  - andsoitis 3y ago
    > If badges motivated learners to do things that benefited them, but now (they feel) badges motivate behavior that benefits the app maker more instead … that would be a clear example of enshittification. But you don't know that the aggregate user base feels that way. In fact, it might actually be much better for learners, like the top comment says: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36611749 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36611749 The person I replied to talked about 1 person getting angry about the change, but that doesn't mean it is bad for everyone and is not evidence of enshittification based on data.
TulliusCicero 3y ago
This seems like a weirdly trivial thing to categorize as enshittification. It's just a vanity badge, not a core component of the app experience.
- reichstein 3y ago
  If you ignore human psychology, ... well, you're probably not making a great app. Why have vanity badges, or other kinds of gamification, to begin with? Because it gives users an added incentive, through an added reward, a goal, which helps them get through something that could otherwise be too tedious or un-fun for them to endure. And if everybody agrees that the added goal aligns with the user's actual goal, that's a great strategy. But you get what you reward, because people like to get rewards. The dopamine rush of knowing you'll reach the goal. If the rewards stop helping users towards their real goals, and you've trained them to work towards your goals already, you'll get people doing daily tasks to get daily rewards that they shouldn't really care about. But they do. Because you made them care. And you might have replaced their intrinsic motivation, wanting to learn a language, with an extrinsic goal, wanting to get a reward. And if they then stop caring about the extrinsic goal, they just might stop entirely. Messing with people's motivations is dangerous, and "driving engagement" is the absolutely most useless reason to do so.
- amatecha 3y ago
  The perceived significance of the reward is irrelevant and doesn't affect whether its degradation is "enshittification" or not. It's not excluded from that categorization because it's considered a "trivial" feature. In fact, I'd argue it's specifically a good example of enshittification because it's one of the very few things that's actually just "a nice thing" the developers added, that was previously a nice friendly thing to grant when someone gains 1000xp in a month. A cool badge. Fun. They didn't have to have this nice little thing, but they did. That's cool, right? If you use the app regularly (as you "should" if you're learning a language), you will absolutely certainly get the badge. Well, that is, until recently, because some of the quests can be difficult to accomplish. No longer is it just a nice consistent monthly thumbs-up in the form of a fun little badge, it's now a source of uncertainty and perhaps even a source of anxiety for people who are driven by "collecting" (e.g. "achievement hunters"). Sure sounds like enshittification to me, regardless of how big a deal it is.

manvillej 3y ago

to be fair, practicing is a pretty essential component to learning a new language. "increasing engagement" also means more practice. Its not an entirely selfish motivation.

ccooffee 3y ago
I disagree in this case. Duolingo formerly had conversational language lessons, which were 100% audio (not even able to see text on screen). These were phenomenal for actually learning to speak <language>, compared to the generated garbage in the lessons. Duolingo formerly had lessons that explain new concepts, like a particular verb tense. It doesn't seem to have any of them once changing over the to completely linear lesson tree. I believe that Duolingo has fallen into a logical trap. They can easily track app engagement. It is known that regular practice is the key to learning a language, but they incorrectly forget the quality of the interactions. I've got my Duolingo 800 day streak still kicking, but I've learned almost nothing with the changes over the last year or so. I'm not terribly sure why I even use the app anymore, as there are plenty of anki decks with the same quality content. (The only thing I'd lose is the speech recognition, but that's so laughably bad that it reinforces incorrect pronunciation.)
- forgotusername6 3y ago
  Their learning experience has got progressively worse with each update. Literally every time they do a major change to the UI they remove something useful. At the moment the tree is now divided into multiple sections. It used to be divided into concepts so I could choose what to learn about. Not really possible anymore. The only reason I am still using it is to preserve my streak. If I ever forgot and break it I'm pretty sure I'll just give up. It stopped teaching me a long time ago.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

andsoitis 3y ago

If someone gets angry about a badge in an app, it seems like they have a deeper issue to deal with.

Nevermark 3y ago
If badges motivated learners to do things that benefited them, but now (they feel) badges motivate behavior that benefits the app maker more instead … that would be a clear example of enshittification. Rule 34 needs a twin: Anything can be useful. Therefore, anything can be enshittified. And will be. Period dot period. QED. I have spoken.
- vore 3y ago
  How can it be a "clear example" when it's subjective by your own admission ("they feel")?
  - Nevermark 3y ago
    I used that qualifier because I am taking their claim at face value. I have no independent way of confirming or confuting the facts. But if their assessment of the badge change is correct, then it is a valid case of enshittification.
- andsoitis 3y ago
  > If badges motivated learners to do things that benefited them, but now (they feel) badges motivate behavior that benefits the app maker more instead … that would be a clear example of enshittification. But you don't know that the aggregate user base feels that way. In fact, it might actually be much better for learners, like the top comment says: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36611749 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36611749 The person I replied to talked about 1 person getting angry about the change, but that doesn't mean it is bad for everyone and is not evidence of enshittification based on data.

TulliusCicero 3y ago

This seems like a weirdly trivial thing to categorize as enshittification. It's just a vanity badge, not a core component of the app experience.

reichstein 3y ago
If you ignore human psychology, ... well, you're probably not making a great app. Why have vanity badges, or other kinds of gamification, to begin with? Because it gives users an added incentive, through an added reward, a goal, which helps them get through something that could otherwise be too tedious or un-fun for them to endure. And if everybody agrees that the added goal aligns with the user's actual goal, that's a great strategy. But you get what you reward, because people like to get rewards. The dopamine rush of knowing you'll reach the goal. If the rewards stop helping users towards their real goals, and you've trained them to work towards your goals already, you'll get people doing daily tasks to get daily rewards that they shouldn't really care about. But they do. Because you made them care. And you might have replaced their intrinsic motivation, wanting to learn a language, with an extrinsic goal, wanting to get a reward. And if they then stop caring about the extrinsic goal, they just might stop entirely. Messing with people's motivations is dangerous, and "driving engagement" is the absolutely most useless reason to do so.
amatecha 3y ago
The perceived significance of the reward is irrelevant and doesn't affect whether its degradation is "enshittification" or not. It's not excluded from that categorization because it's considered a "trivial" feature. In fact, I'd argue it's specifically a good example of enshittification because it's one of the very few things that's actually just "a nice thing" the developers added, that was previously a nice friendly thing to grant when someone gains 1000xp in a month. A cool badge. Fun. They didn't have to have this nice little thing, but they did. That's cool, right? If you use the app regularly (as you "should" if you're learning a language), you will absolutely certainly get the badge. Well, that is, until recently, because some of the quests can be difficult to accomplish. No longer is it just a nice consistent monthly thumbs-up in the form of a fun little badge, it's now a source of uncertainty and perhaps even a source of anxiety for people who are driven by "collecting" (e.g. "achievement hunters"). Sure sounds like enshittification to me, regardless of how big a deal it is.