Graph is from Yahoo finance: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/DUOL/?guccounter=1
Reuters news article: https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/duolingo-prioritizes-user-growth-over-monetization-forecasts-softer-bookings-2026-02-26/
“The language-learning app has spent recent years fine-tuning monetization through more ads and subscription prompts, helping lift bookings per user. But that coincided with slower user growth.” Yes Reuters, that’s called enshittification.
Duolingo was never worth anywhere near 25 billion lol. It was just a pyramid scheme to transfer cash from the poorer shareholders so the richer shareholders could have a good exit.
Duolingo has basically been a shitty mobile game since the forums were deleted and they really really enshittified even more in the last 2 years.
Wait, their forums were deleted? I remember doing their German course like a decade ago and my favorite aspect of it was always the discussion boards that went into more detail on the lesson topics. That’s insane!
That was the only good part about Duolingo. Volunteers spent thousands of hours explaining languages and grammar on the forums. Duolingo nuked all of that information.
I remember when it started, a key part of the business model was the users would do translation work to hone their skills and the app would get paid. AI ultimately destroyed all sides of the company.