Duolingo is garbage for learning a language, but also a shit company in general. I remember when I found out years back that some of their original language courses were put together by volunteers, at least in part, and then of course they turned around and cashed in on it.

I also (indirectly) blame Duolingo somewhat for how mediocre so many other language apps are. I’ve had more than one time I liked a language app and then they revamped their interface… to look/feel more like Duolingo. But Duolingo’s design looks like Baby’s First App. It’s not a good design to mimic, it just happens to be attached to what is possibly the most well known language learning app there is.

Duolingo, I feel, did to language learning apps what World of Warcraft did to MMORPGs; because of its incredibly outsized popularity/fame, it became the thing other businesses mimic to try to make money. But its ideas, while not all terrible, are extremely overrated and a very narrow window into how things could be done. So the industry becomes very stagnant and narrow instead of trying more interesting ideas.

Anyway, there’s my mini Duolingo rant and fuck US sanction bullshit.

Iranians are truly done for. There is no way to recover from this. Strait of Hormuz is officially the Straight of America [sic] now.