> going to shout-out ClozeMaster here since I first found out about it on hacker news. Always hated duolingo - it's the gamification triggered to many alarm bells to me.

Duolingo was always aiming at the casual app user (not serious language learners, think getting casual 14-30yo users to switch 10 min a day from playing casual games instead or consuming SM), and openly admitted they crafted the product and their metrics around gamification and socially acquiring new (paying, non-freemium) users. So judge their behavior by that. Also, you can turn off some but not all of the default gamification + social features.