Duolingo Grows, But Users Disliked Increased Ads and Subscription Pushes. Stock Plummets Again (barrons.com)
- Reference: 0180875222
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/26/02/28/2321238/duolingo-grows-but-users-disliked-increased-ads-and-subscription-pushes-stock-plummets-again
- Source link: https://www.barrons.com/articles/duolingo-stock-earnings-price-strategy-analyst-5bac8185
Since last May, Duolingo's stock has dropped 81%. Yes, the company faced a [2]social media [3]backlash that month after its CEO promised they'd become [4]an "AI-first" company (favoring AI over human contractors). And yes, Duolingo did [5]double its language offerings using generative AI. But more importantly, that summer OpenAI showed how easy it was to just [6]roll your own language-learning tool from a short prompt in a GPT-5 demo, while Google built an [7]AI-powered language-learning tool into its Translate app .
And yet, Friday Duolingo's shares dropped another 14%, after announcing good fourth quarter results but an unpopular direction for its future. [8] Fast Company reports :
> On the surface, many of the [9]company's most critical metrics saw decent gains for the quarter, including:
>
> — Daily Active Users: 52.7 million (up 30% year-over-year)
> — Paid Subscribers: 12.2 million (up 28% year-over-year)
> — Revenue: $282.9 million (up 35% year-over-year)
> — Total bookings: $336.8 million (up 24% year-over-year)
>
> The company also reported its full-year 2025 financials, revealing that for the first time in its history, it crossed the $1 billion revenue mark for a fiscal year.
But the Motley Fool explains that Duolingo's [10]higher ad loads and repeated pushes for subscription plans "generated revenues in the short term, but made the Duolingo platform less engaging. Ergo, user growth decelerated while revenues rose." Thursday Duolingo announced a big change to address that, including moving more features into lower-priced tiers. [11] Barron's reports:
> D.A. Davidson analyst Wyatt Swanson, who rates Duolingo stock at Neutral, posited that the push to monetize "led to disgruntled users and a meaningful negative impact to 'word-of-mouth' marketing." Duolingo has guided for bookings growth between 10% and 12% in 2026, compared with the 20% rate the company would have expected to see "if we operated like we have in past years...." If stock reaction is any indication, investors are concerned about Duolingo's new focus.
[1] https://www.fastcompany.com/91499936/duolingo-stock-price-falls-dramatic-collapse-ai-first-memo
[2] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/05/25/0347239/duolingo-faces-massive-social-media-backlash-after-ai-first-comments
[3] https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/06/08/185209/after-ai-first-promise-duolingo-ceo-admits-i-did-not-expect-the-blowback
[4] https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/04/29/0049233/duolingo-will-replace-contract-workers-with-ai
[5] https://slashdot.org/story/25/04/30/238254/duolingo-doubles-its-language-courses-thanks-to-ai
[6] https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/08/17/194212/duolingos-stock-down-38-plummets-after-openais-gpt-5-language-app-building-demo
[7] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/08/26/1648258/google-is-building-a-duolingo-rival-into-the-translate-app
[8] https://www.fastcompany.com/91499936/duolingo-stock-price-falls-dramatic-collapse-ai-first-memo
[9] https://investors.duolingo.com/static-files/961ce633-3cee-49d0-bd7a-2c63731d45fb
[10] https://www.fool.com/investing/2026/02/27/why-duolingo-stock-plunged-today/
[11] https://www.barrons.com/articles/duolingo-stock-earnings-price-strategy-analyst-5bac8185
Idiots (Score:3)
They need more AI!!!
More woke enshittifcation (Score:4, Informative)
I tried Duolingo but, in order to virtue signal their own slavish wokeness to all the demented sheep, they idiotically over-represent gay relationships and people in roles not normal for their genders.
That makes learning a language harder because you have to double check that he is married to him and she is a car mechanic and you have to learn the translation of unused, made-up rubbish like "house husband".
Merde à toutes ces conneries.
Re: (Score:2)
I was all ready to stereotype you as disgruntled anti-woke but then house husband dropped.
You win
Re: (Score:2)
If corporations are people, and people are people, then both can preach on about politics all they want. Of course one entity is going to have more reach since they have more money. Then again, that's true of most political races anyway. It doesn't always matter who spends the most, but I would be surprised if the long term stats didn't support spending more to win.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
It’s more than just the ads (Score:4, Informative)
The app interface is as busy as a squatted domain, and it only seems to get worse every month.
Which is a pity, because at the core of it is a decent product.
I deleted the app years ago (Score:2)
It became less about learning and more about pushing up a level through daily challenges. Kiddifying the platform assuming what works for an 8 year old works for a 48 year old.
Matching random words in a sentence rather than learning any fundamentals of grammar. e.g. I did the first few levels of Scottish Gaelic without understand a thing.
And that was before AI - they're not even using native or bilingual speakers any more to make up 'real' conversations?
Quality is plummeting (Score:2)
Before they started using AI the quality was barely good enough, and now, after AI it has gotten way worse. My entire family is using Duolingo, but we've started to talk about getting something else soon. It's also not a very effective learning platform, as you are usually stuck on just learning words (and often a bit odd ones at that).
Using AI might save them some money, but they need to do better than what any AI chatbot can do for you. Gamification will only get you so far, the platform needs to actual
Not cheap (Score:2)
I have been using it for over 5 years. My ad blocker seems to handle everything except the subscribe promos. I pay for 1 on 1 lessons for a human so have looked at also paying for a subscription with Duolingo several times. However every time I look at the price seem really expensive for a machine served experience, so opted to stay on the free plan.
I use the free version... It's fine. (Score:2)
I use the free version (with a lot of layers of ad-blocking) to learn Dutch, and it's OK. It's terrible for learning grammar, but not too bad for vocabulary. I took (and am going to take) lessons from an actual human teacher, but I like the daily 5-10 minute Duolingo session to stay in practice. I don't live in a Dutch-speaking country, so it's tough to find people to practice with.
Undone by greed (Score:2)
The capitalist's Achille's heel.
It's a balancing act of service vs profit. You like your stock price going higher so you've got to grow your revenue and rather than making difficult efficiencies it's easier to grift more cash from your customers and damage the experience they signed up for. It looks like that taps out at some point. I am cancelling Prime since they started pushing ads.
Ads are micro stressors, they assault your attention, create desire for something you probably cant afford or probably shou
Used to be good (Score:2)
But as usual, they went for the short-term profit and worsened the platform significantly for the most dedicated users. It might work in the short-term but they'll be driven away by their lack of uniqueness soon enough.
Justice (Score:3)
It's really refreshing to see backlash to enshittification hitting a company right in the share price. Didn't expect to read such good news today.
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately and ironically for a learning company they seem to be completely incapable of learning.
Re: (Score:3)
It means that they are run by narcissists. It happens too often these days. I want to undo this trend with every fiber of my body.
Re: (Score:2)
Dare to dream my friend
Enshittification (Score:2)
Speaking of enshittification, in the past few months, it seems to me that the UX has deteriorated. I have to kill the app and start over occasionally, because of hangs, and microphone input that gets muted sometimes. They seem to have also gotten rid of all the characters in the lessons except for Lily and Falstaff which is strange.