Absolutely brilliant takedown of the translation bear thesis. Your structural latency argument (grammar/syntax differences requiring end-of-sentence context) is the knockout blow most analysts miss - even quantum computing can't solve that. The chess analogy is particularly elegant: computers have been better than humans for 28 years, yet chess.com has 150M registered users and growing. Self-improvement is orthogonal to utilitarian performance. Your personal bilingual experience gives this analysis credibility that armchair theorists lack - the distinction between transactional vs. casual conversation is something only practitioners understand viscerally. The Duolingo motivation data (education 38%, connection 27%, productive use 16%) demolishes the "travel disruption" narrative - that cohort is noise, not signal. The historical analysis is devastating: Google Translate has had real-time capabilities since 2015, Duolingo monetized in 2015, IPO'd in 2021. If disruption was coming, it would have manifested by now. The strongest bull case is often "why hasn't the obvious bear thesis already killed the compny?" Your framing inverts the burden of proof correctly. This article should be required reading for anyone short DUOL or avoiding it due to translation fears. Thanks for the exceptional first-principles analysis!
Excellent points you make here. In general I struggled to see the absolutely longevity of the success of DUOL. But the thing you touch on here, is people's need to learn.
The comparison with chess is very strong, and that completely hammered home your point to me.
Learning chess is about self-improving, setting challenges and the drive to learn.
That's exactly what DUOL is offering, but purely focused on language (and soon other avenues)
Good write-up! Appreciate the thought-provoking piece, and I might have to dive deeper into DUOL
Absolutely brilliant takedown of the translation bear thesis. Your structural latency argument (grammar/syntax differences requiring end-of-sentence context) is the knockout blow most analysts miss - even quantum computing can't solve that. The chess analogy is particularly elegant: computers have been better than humans for 28 years, yet chess.com has 150M registered users and growing. Self-improvement is orthogonal to utilitarian performance. Your personal bilingual experience gives this analysis credibility that armchair theorists lack - the distinction between transactional vs. casual conversation is something only practitioners understand viscerally. The Duolingo motivation data (education 38%, connection 27%, productive use 16%) demolishes the "travel disruption" narrative - that cohort is noise, not signal. The historical analysis is devastating: Google Translate has had real-time capabilities since 2015, Duolingo monetized in 2015, IPO'd in 2021. If disruption was coming, it would have manifested by now. The strongest bull case is often "why hasn't the obvious bear thesis already killed the compny?" Your framing inverts the burden of proof correctly. This article should be required reading for anyone short DUOL or avoiding it due to translation fears. Thanks for the exceptional first-principles analysis!
No company would endorse the use of real-time translation in the workplace, it poses too many risks. Learning a foreign language is necessary.
Excellent points you make here. In general I struggled to see the absolutely longevity of the success of DUOL. But the thing you touch on here, is people's need to learn.
The comparison with chess is very strong, and that completely hammered home your point to me.
Learning chess is about self-improving, setting challenges and the drive to learn.
That's exactly what DUOL is offering, but purely focused on language (and soon other avenues)
Good write-up! Appreciate the thought-provoking piece, and I might have to dive deeper into DUOL
Hi! If you replace "real-live translate" with "AI" it is similar.
At the end, evolution is highly correlated with necessity.