#Duolingo is such a strange palimpsestic app

On one hand it presents itself as linear, gamifying itself to incentivise you to move along paths and through league tables

But they are constantly shifting the syllabus and moving you around according to the 'new' version

They always change the mechanics – for instance, you'll get a double-score bonus for completing a goal, then the next day you'll only get a 1.5 score bonus for completing the same goal

I'll go there one day and there will be some feature I have never seen before

Like, for years there was a game where you matched words with their translations to a progressively shorter time limit. TBH it rewarded fast-twitch muscle memory more than actual language knowledge

But now they've done away with that and there's a flashcard game where you have to say a word aloud and then get punished because they didn't think you said it with precisely the right intonation or whatever

Anyway, now there's a feature where cheapskates on the free plan can "practise" this flashcard game like digital serfs to earn 'energy' points that enable them to access the basic features of the app that Duolingo withholds unless you pay for them or sit inertly as the most brain-dead, disgusting ads imaginable auto-play

I wonder what aspect of the app will be worse when I use it today