"I'm still considering whether or not to add notifications on the app. Duolingo notoriously does this, but I've come to accept that promoting education technology to consumers is like promoting Adderall to improve corporate productivity to enterprise HR teams. In theory, it makes sense, but in practice it's basically nonsense.

So one reason Duolingo does this is because they essentially have to abuse, spam and beg people to even use their education app in the first place with notifications, emails and other "marketing" tactics, and it's really because promoting education to consumers is like pulling teeth - so you need to create a habit forming tool, a game, an abusive notifications system and brainrot content to even remotely have a chance.

I digress, I added a cute dog because it's more pleasant in a number of ways and a heatmap is less anxiety inducing than a calendar streak system."