From 2015 to 2022, I spent hundreds of hours on Duolingo, translating articles, answering language questions on the forums, and helping to improve the smaller courses by reporting mistakes.
There are thousands of volunteers who donated their labour to Duo: the course creators who wrote their courses, the volunteers who created grammar guides (some smaller languages had an entire second course in the forums), the wiki contributors, the native speakers who answered questions in the sentence discussions.
All of their work made Duolingo the powerhouse it is today. Duo was built by a community who believed in its original mission: language learning should be free and accessible.
Bit by bit all of our work was hidden from us as Duolingo became a publicly-traded company. And now that work is being fed into their AI as training data.
Well, I've learned the true lesson of Duolingo: never give a corporation your labour for free. Don't ever trust them, no matter what they say. Eventually greed will consume any good intentions.
#duolingo #languagelearning #enshittification #capitalism
Historically speaking, the male head-of-household had dictatorial control over the ownership and expenditures within the household. Only in the last two generations have western women gained the right to hold down jobs and assume credit for large purchases, to own their own homes, and to take full custody of their children. The idea of emancipated minors, civil rights for children, and labor protections for young people are even newer. And there are plenty of reactionary political attitudes in the country that would see these reforms rolled back.
A family certainly can operate in a socialist capacity, when productive property and its surplus is shared equitably. But there are plenty of instances in which the head-of-house is functionally no different than a landlord, demanding the rest of the family live contribute surplus labor while existing in relative poverty.
That depends heavily on how the family operates.
Historically speaking, the male head-of-household had dictatorial control over the ownership and expenditures within the household. Only in the last two generations have western women gained the right to hold down jobs and assume credit for large purchases, to own their own homes, and to take full custody of their children. The idea of emancipated minors, civil rights for children, and labor protections for young people are even newer. And there are plenty of reactionary political attitudes in the country that would see these reforms rolled back.
A family certainly can operate in a socialist capacity, when productive property and its surplus is shared equitably. But there are plenty of instances in which the head-of-house is functionally no different than a landlord, demanding the rest of the family live contribute surplus labor while existing in relative poverty.