Quick take: Duolingo after the sell-off
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1/ Duolingo is category-defining.
When people think “learn a language,” they think Duolingo.
But category-defining doesn’t automatically mean inevitable.
2/ The reason I compare it to Oscar and Apollo is simple.
Oscar sits on top of a system that must exist.
Apollo sits inside a machine that will compound for decades.
Duolingo is different.
It’s a consumer app in education.
Great product.
But not a structural necessity.
3/ And that’s my main contrarian point.
Language learning is optional.
Health insurance isn’t.
Retirement income isn’t.
Duolingo competes for attention, motivation, and discipline.
That’s a harder business than people admit.
4/ Yes, the product is sticky.
But switching costs are low.
Network effects are weak.
You can stop using it tomorrow and nothing breaks in your life.
That’s not an infrastructure moat.
That’s a habit moat.
5/ The stock decline makes the debate interesting.
Because the market is forced to reprice the question:
Is Duolingo a long-term compounding machine…
Or a great consumer subscription business that eventually slows?
Those are two very different outcomes.
6/ AI is both the opportunity and the threat.
Duolingo can become the best personalized tutor on earth.
But AI also makes it easier for competitors to build “good enough” language products.
So the moat is not guaranteed to widen.
It might compress.
7/ Here’s the honest truth.
I respect the business.
I respect the brand.
I respect the execution.
But I’m not convinced the product is inevitable yet.
The jury is still out for me.
8/ This is why I’m not buying today.
Not because it can’t work.
But because I don’t have the conviction layer I need for an ultra-concentrated bet.
I need inevitability.
Not just quality.
9/ If Duolingo becomes more than a habit…
If it becomes the default language credential platform…
If it embeds into work, school, and real economic outcomes…
Then the upside is real.
10/ Until then, I watch.
Category-defining, yes.
But for me, not yet “must-own.”
Not yet inevitable.
Exackly
I read this more like personal sentiment than a case built on measurable drivers. Here’s why I disagree with several points:
Point 3: In practice, whether the product is “optional” doesn’t change the key fact — the user base is growing. If usage and DAUs keep expanding, the “optional” framing isn’t evidence of weakness by itself.
Point 4: Mechanically, Duolingo’s stickiness is exactly the point. Streaks (and friend streaks) create daily behavior, which means many users still open the app for 1–5 minutes a day. Even without Super, that daily habit can produce recurring ad revenue — essentially a passive monetization layer driven by repetition.
Point 5: Market moves are usually about expectations, not “the business broke.” The decline makes more sense as a reaction to (1) portfolio rotation/positioning and (2) Duolingo signaling a stronger focus on product/quality over near-term revenue/margins — a tradeoff some investors don’t like.
Point 6: The AI fear is understandable, but “AI will replace Duolingo” is not a proven outcome. So far, AI hasn’t clearly displaced Duolingo’s habit + gamification + curriculum advantages. Also, Duolingo is adopting AI to improve the product, not ignoring it — which shifts the story from “AI vs Duolingo” to “Duolingo using AI.”