Plenty of people enjoy Duolingo. And I wouldn’t say it’s a dead end any more than simple picture books or a total beginners class. Will it turn you into a fluent speaker? No, so what.
My impression of duolingo was strongly influenced by a former PM who said basically what OP said without any hint of ill will in their voice. Duolingo discovered that it was easier to reward-hack short term signals of language learning instead of scaffolding those signals into longterm language learning. Today it’s essentially Candy Crush for people who think they’re too smart for Candy Crush.
That’s not even a diss, it’s just The Way Of The World when you are directly rewarded for growth and retention and very indirectly for language learning.
That's overly harsh. I use Duolingo for Japanese because
- I thought it would be fun to learn a little about Japanese. And I do learn some, and it is fun.
- I wanted to "understand" a bit of what was being said during subtitled anime I watch. This was _partially_ successful. I understand some words, and I notice some things like "oh, that was a question", and sometimes notice when what was said doesn't match the text. I get enough out of it that it adds to my enjoyment
So, clearly there's a group of people out there that are there to gain some knowledge out of it, and _not_ to rack up some kind of score (and feel superior).