I just noticed this when I saw a strange "Achievement Unlocked" notification pop up on Reddit. What do you think of this? It seems like a retention tactic to me, like what Amino had with its streak leaderboards, and GameFAQs currently has with streak achievements for logging on ten days in a row and also for all days of a month.
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Yup, I also think that it's a retention tactic. Not the first one: karma, user profiles, that new year crap etc., they all boil down to "we're giving you reasons to consistently come back, and produce content for us for free."
The timing hints me that the Reddit userbase is getting a lower rebound ratio nowadays. i.e. user goes there to see some junk, then forgets about the site.
It's also just part of a wider internet trend I think. More and more games and social media have them. Developers are getting better and better at hacking people's attention and reward pathways. For Duolingo I think it's fun, because learning a language is a fun and productive thing to do anyways (and despite the hate it has really worked well for me) but for games and things like social media or whatever I just find it annoying.
Games, social media sites, online shops, they are all working on building the psychologically optimised perfect maze for their prey.
For duolingo it's the same mechanics, but from a whole different movement.
Reddit's action belongs in the "enshitification" movement. I don't know if it's the accepted term yet, but it should be. It's a general movement away from user experience and approval and towards agressive retention and sales (ads) tactics.
Duilingo's actions belongs woth the "gameification" movement. Where the intention is to make learning more fun by adding gaming mechanics like points and rewards.
Both make use of the body's dopamine mechanics, but one is evil and the other is good. Just like how nuclear power can be use for evil and for good.