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The start-up Duolingo, even though not advertised as a not-for-profit, is offering the learning service for it's customers for free.

This brings up the question: How could Duolingo make money? Are their intentions public?

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Hi, can you improve the question so it's a little bit more applicable to this site? Thanks. – Alain Raynaud Feb 19 '12 at 17:49
@AlainRaynaud: Is that a little better? – Justin Feb 19 '12 at 18:25
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The site is in private beta, so it's way too early to discuss their plans for revenue. I still don't see the question as relevant here. – Alain Raynaud Feb 20 '12 at 5:41
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I would have thought startup business models were very relevant. – Susan Jones Feb 20 '12 at 8:27

1 Answer

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Duolingo isn't so much a business to teach languages, it's a service to offer translations. By crowd-sourcing translations they can translate text for a fraction of the traditional cost, while offering better quality than machine translation can do.

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Where can I buy the translations from? This seems unclear to me. – Justin Feb 21 '12 at 1:05
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On duolingo.com/#/upload, there is the statement "Uploading a document and retrieving its translation is 100% free, though in the future we may charge for speed and accuracy." Gain traction first, then charge afterwards. – jimg Jul 20 '12 at 13:44

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