It's selling a lifestyle change, and one which is "easy" and fun.
Once you're hooked in, they gamify everything to make you feel like you're doing well. There's the leaderboards, the daily streaks, the ba-ding every time you rearrange 7 word tiles into the only possible sentence that makes any sense.
Go and look at the Duolingo subreddit. When I looked a few years ago, it's just people showing off their 3000+ day streaks.
Anki is a better tool, but its not as polished. Duolingo hooks people with all the little gamified bits, the animations, and it's self-fulfilling popularity loop. Unfortunately being polished is genuinely an incredibly important feature for the majority of people.
Once you're hooked in, they gamify everything to make you feel like you're doing well. There's the leaderboards, the daily streaks, the ba-ding every time you rearrange 7 word tiles into the only possible sentence that makes any sense.
Go and look at the Duolingo subreddit. When I looked a few years ago, it's just people showing off their 3000+ day streaks.
Anki is a better tool, but its not as polished. Duolingo hooks people with all the little gamified bits, the animations, and it's self-fulfilling popularity loop. Unfortunately being polished is genuinely an incredibly important feature for the majority of people.