Anyone from 4-5 years ago?

Question

It's been some time, with a lot of on and off but the app that introduced me to basic coding has been in my heart ever since I started my journey. The good old days. When you could save your lessons offline, solve challenges and keep learning when you had the answers wrong (Yes, there was no heart system and whatnot), are now long gone. It seems there's been a trade: more structure and a premium option (with better content I'm convinced) for ... I'm not sure, fewer options for those who won't buy the premium? No one-time-buy option, ads (meaning revenue), and more restrictions on the learning experience?
Added to that a not so great customer service :-( . They should perhaps leave this to mentors. Brief...

I can already see the comments calling me unfair, to an extent even, ridiculing me and saying first class has a price etc. I agree with all that. In fact, I voted for the addition of that first class.
But at what cost?

Am I asking for too much? Is there anyone else sharing my view or am exaggerating?

Answer 1

Wilbur Jaywright no offense but there is really no need to bring politics into this. The world economy is what it is, a given fact for most of us, every company has to navigate the same troubled waters.

In my opinion Sololearn is still trying to innovate and invent stuff to improve the experience. There were several experiments with features such as video feeds or personal mentorship, which were removed. Some changes in the content structure are, I think, quite positive. But progress is slow, often there are bugs, I think the dev team's budget does not allow them to realise all of their ideas at the highest quality. Maybe it's management issue, maybe it's about funding, we really have no insight on that. It is still a great accomplishment that such an app can survive for so long time. But we ancient users are also feeling your pain. Even if we have our own ideas how to improve things, and we (the mentors) can communicate with the SL team a little more directly, it is difficult to accomplish anything.

Answer 2

Welcome back!. I’ve been here since then, and no everything you said is valid. I didn't like the heart feature either. However, i found there is still a lot to do as a free member.I appricate the fact that sololearn gave a lot for free back then, but today I understand they have to keep the servers running some how.

Answer 3

True. Not sure if the premium option has the option to download content for offline use.

And for the heart option thing, well maybe the idea was to make people focus and take the course more seriously. When you have something to lose you become more serious.
Just a thought.

Answer 4

I actually like the heart system. Often, My brain is fuzzy and i get one wrong after the next it’s great to be forced to put this down and try again the next day.

Answer 5

It’s because of Bidenomics. Ban me if you must, but it is. Everyone is fighting to stay afloat right now, even those that are with the zombies. We are in a civil cold war.