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I was playing around with Duolingo today. I tried it a few years ago, just before the pandemic; it got a lot better. This time around, I didn't feel like an idiot poking at obvious multiple-choice questions. There is a good mix of different actions now, including speaking (which now works well). It is gamified, which is good for this sort of thing.
So when I started with a browser, it started showing ads. That is fine as everything else on the web is doing the same, and I know what I am in for.
But then I decided to try the app, and the threat level now is totally different. While I roughly know what the browser is likely to protect me from (or expose me to), an app can do a whole lot more.
Worse yet, an app with built-in ads is a real can of worms. Normally, apps are somewhat limited to what they can access by Android, theoretically letting you control it. But an app with Google (or worse yet, some random ad network's) advertising code compiled in is a complete unknown -- google can do literally anything it wants with your machine.
At the very least, google and advertisers can now track me in terrible ways. It is literally a backdoor to my device. Now there is at least one other party involved in my interaction with Duolingo, and it is a complete unknown.
Advertising is what it is, but advertising baked into an app makes the whole thing pretty evil. Even if I decide to opt out by paying for the service, the baked-in advertising code is still there, and I don't really trust advertising networks to keep out of my business. In essence, my trust in Duolingo is extremely low because of advertising.
I'd probably pay Duolingo for their course if I could download an installable off-line package, or even an app without advertising. As it stands, I'll probably uninstall the app and continue not using mainstream bullshit.
Feb 17 · 6 months ago
🍄 Ruby_Witch · 2024-02-17 at 10:17:
Did you install Duolingo from the Play Store? If so, then Google's tendrils were already in your phone watching your every step long before you downloaded that app. Duolingo having ads is not exposing you any more or less than you already were with Google's spyware store on your device.
🎵 Jentu · 2024-02-17 at 18:02:
It's so interesting since my opinion of duolingo has gotten progressively worse over the past couple years. I just gave up on my 530 day streak because I was more focused on maintaining a streak rather than language learning (which has become obvious due to my learning plateau). They also removed the user forum which was very helpful in asking questions about grammar, and are embracing AI, which I'm not a big fan of. I've switched to Pimsleur for now, so hopefully this works out for me.
🚀 stack [OP] · 2024-02-17 at 19:15:
Google is no doubt so interspersed with everything on android that there is little hope to hide much... However, when I am inside an app with mic on, there are extra opportunities to use app's permissions. And the ad network may not be google but an entirely different party.
In-app ads in duolingo are pretty tame-- it seems to sell a crappy game company and a warning of bad courseware, in adđition to its own ads, so I don't think its google.
🚀 stack [OP] · 2024-02-17 at 19:22:
@Jentu, I think the app is mediocre. It is a little laggy, and stopped speaking for several minutes for no reason (sound effects still on). I would not pay money for it... The content is currently engaging enough to keep me involved, for now. Day 2 :)
What's Pimsleur like in comparison
☕️ Morgan · 2024-02-17 at 21:30:
Big +1 for Pimsleur. It's not really an app, it's a series of audio courses that's been around forever ... well, since the 80s(!).
I've used the German, Mandarin and French courses and I'd say they're about the best way there is to get started on a language apart from full immersion. You really get the pronunciation down, and the phonetics, and a solid start on sentence structure.
They're pretty expensive though.
🚀 stack [OP] · 2024-02-18 at 00:25:
The worst part: I pretty much gave up and decided to pay them to stop the ads, but they only take Google Pay! I've never given google my financial information and have no plans to do so. So there goes that idea.
In the meantime, the free layer is not bad; you are penalized for making errors, but if you run out of 'hearts', you can get a couple by doing review work and watching an ad... I don't know if not worrying about making errors is good or bad yet. I do know that I am paying more attention because hearts are a limited resource...
🎵 Jentu · 2024-02-18 at 05:06:
@stack Pimsleur is a completely different learning method. I'd say Duolingo and Rosetta stone are the most similar, but Pimsleur is more of a conversational back-and-forth type learning method. Each lesson is around 30 minutes of audio and it's very repetative, but way more challenging than duolingo so far. I learned quite a lot from duolingo at the start. Hopefully you don't have the issue with plateauing that I did.
🚀 stack [OP] · 2024-02-18 at 05:13:
@Jentu, thank you. Reminds me of the British English records I used to learn conversational English as a teen... I think it was Dixon if I am not mistaken. The trick is to get fluent enough to roughly understand simple TV shows, I think.
I am also trying to not over think it but absorb as a child would...
@stack, if you want to get a no ads version, you can register as an educator, in https://schools.duolingo.com/, register there and make a classroom, I don't think you actually have to join the classroom yourself), and then you're given an add free experience, but I think it violates their TOS.
I used Duolingo for a while, but I'm going mostly fine without it, I guess that's the case as I'm feeding myself a lot of English content. But I think I'll next try those types of audio for the next language I want to learn, (as it's not like english where there's widely available data (texts, audios, videos, etc))
🐙 norayr · 2024-02-19 at 01:42:
the founder of the project explained it in his ted talk i think. he framed it like, it's not that poor people don't have access to education anymore. they have same access but have to watch ads.
i know that some influential people from armenian diaspora in usa approached the project authorities and were willing to do anything to get armenian language in to duo lingo. they were rejected with the 'no market'/'no financial benefit' like explanation.
since many other languages on duo lingo don't have high demand too, one might assume the decision was political, not merely financial.
because of duo lingo rejection those people invested and created their own ayolingo - app to learn armenian.
🚀 stack [OP] · 2024-02-19 at 03:14:
@norayr: very interesting... Being 1/4 Armenian myself, I feel personally offended. They even
have ads about saving dying languages!
☕️ Morgan · 2024-02-19 at 15:10:
For what it's worth, credit card payment systems are generally very good from a privacy point of view.
That's because the card providers advocate for the card owners.
If you provide a dodgy payment gateway then mastercard, visa and friends will simply drop you and you are no longer a payment provider.
🚀 stack [OP] · 2024-02-19 at 18:00:
@Morgan, my concern is not about google stealing from my credit card. It's about privacy. Right now google knows all about my online habits, and can make a pretty good _guess_ about my identity. As soon as I give them a credit card, it is no longer a guess and I am deanonimized forever. Note that I never log into any google services, and never use the email used as the account for the android device... Why bother? I do not want google keeping tabs on me. I want what's left of my privacy
🐙 norayr · 2024-02-20 at 13:52:
@stack, cool! if you have fedi account, you can follow my armenian language posts just to see the letters in the stream. i guess it annoys most of the people though. (: also if you have xmpp, i can add you to some local xmpp chatrooms. sure you won't understand anything but well. we have one english speaking xmpp room to share with our foreign friends what is happening here, but what is happening is so depressing that we don't. (:
🐙 norayr · 2024-02-20 at 13:52:
and by the way, duo lingo is possible to use without the app, just from the browser. but i am not using it. i think of using it to learn (improve, radically improve) esperanto.
☕️ Morgan · 2024-02-20 at 14:50:
@stack Yes, I got that part :) it's a reasonable concern.
My point was that payments related data has real teeth :) it probably does not go into the same bucket as other data, because mixing/joining data with different constraints on it inevitably leads to expensive/embarrassing screwups.
I realize that this is not concrete enough to be of much use :) so, er, just making conversation really ;)
Back on topic: Pimsleur was into the idea of spaced repetition, actually I think he did some of the original research on it. If you sit through the audio course with a stopwatch I believe you'll find it roughly follows the "practice facts at increasing intervals" pattern.
☕️ Morgan · 2024-02-20 at 14:51:
And it's usually at this point that someone mentions Anki :) which is a great app/tool for any kind of fact-based learning.