So basically I am trying to downgrade for one month to free because I know next month will be very challenging for me and learning german will honestly be one of my least concerns. So I try to cancel my subscription with idea to continue in a month or two and I just realized that in order to keep my statistics, my known words, and other stuff I have to continue paying 2 dollars per month and if I don’t things will just get deleted so basically I’ll have to start from zero once I return.
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I paid for 3 months because it was half price but even that seems pretty expensive. This site definitely seems to lean a lot more towards business, then actually trying to help people learn a new language. I’ll be using something else after my 3 months. I’m pretty sure that between podcasts, YouTube, duo lingo, reverso context, collins and many other free resources people can learn without this money grab site.
Cheers!
You must be joking, LingQ is dirt cheap! I think, for somebody who wants to learn a foreign language, 0.4$/day is truly insignificant. In any case, calling this site a " money grab site " is not fair. YMMV
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I don’t think 12 dollars is expensive but I do think that 2 dollars is a joke… I pay 1 dollar for 50GB cloud per month… not like lingq is storing any data for me. At least they should offer pause subscription feature or something like that.
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$2 a month? I don’t know your financial situation, but that’s less than the cost of a cheap home made meal. Don’t get me wrong, I think it would be great if they would leave your data for at least a couple of months, but when I thought about it some, they do have to pay for servers (and/or cloud) to store all that stuff. If they kept everyone’s stuff that signed on and left, that’s a lot for THEM to pay for. $2 seems not very much to be honest.
Apologies if this sounds insensitive…I just feel like they are providing a service, and one of those services while you’re not using (but still storing your data) is data storage. It’ seems fair that they should be compensated for that. It’s not “free” for them.
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Read my comment above. Anyway I pressed all the buttons to downgrade but it doesn’t even work properly. What guarantee do I have that I will not be charged for the next month?
I agree here, I look at it this way: once I take the language to a certain level - I will not need LingQ anymore. There will be no reason to keep the data, and I’ll happily remove the account.
For the short pauses in language learning, paying 2$/month would be ok for me. Though, I’d never do that - I can always find some 15 minutes a day, every day, in any case. Otherwise, downgrading the account would, in reality, mean to me stopping the learning altogether.
I don’t think we should compare LingQ to Google, I doubt they have good margins, if any at all.
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And while it’s disappointing that these things cost money, it makes sense. After all, LingQ has to probably consider local taxes as a business, as well as pay for the servers, developers, etc. Because this is a niche site, they likely don’t have access to discounts on storage that larger companies have. For example, for my own website hosting is just a bit more than the cost of LingQ, and that’s just for a basic business site!
But it also depends on your needs.
When I was student, I would have never wanted to invest in a program like this. I didn’t find the value. But I also had more time. I invested in LingQ now because I work a lot and I don’t have time to switch from material to material for my languages. I have 3 that aren’t covered by LingQ also, so I needed to streamline to keep my sanity. Honestly, given how much I’ve spent in the last 10 years on textbooks and software, this is significantly less expensive.
I think it’s important to remember that every site require assets that aren’t free.
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Well considering that most video and audio streaming services are charging $9.99/month for content that they have to pay royalties for, I’d say this site is actually very expensive.
The fact that the content is mostly free imports from other sites, you have to double check almost every translation with an online dictionary(which I could do without the website) and the website itself is kind of archaic and riddled with issues doesn’t justify the cost.
Just look at this forum for instance, it has no sorting or filtering functions. it’s awkward to navigate.
I’m not saying the site should be free or anything but I’m not seeing the returns on investment. YMMV
As far as I know when you downgrade to the $2 a month plan your are not pausing it, it is just a discount plan, but you would still be able to access the site.
Maybe lingQ could offer a way for you to pause your subscription, and in this case, you would not be able to access it with full functionality.
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I’m not quite sure what you mean about losing data, I used LingQ maybe 2 years ago as a free user, logged in only around a week ago and all my known words, lingqs, lessons had been kept. Not my streaks of course, but everything else was there. I really doubt they’d delete your data if you unsubbed, that’s why I say I’m not sure what you mean - maybe that’s a particular quirk I don’t know about, I’m pretty new here.
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I wouldn’t characterize Lingq as “greedy”; compared to other language learning software and web services, Lingq is relatively cheap and provides great value, in my opinion. Also, when you add in Steve’s free YouTube content about language learning, I think the overall Lingq experience is well worth the expense. No offense, but your situation does appear to be quite unusual and Lingq is a business after all.
Just cancell your account and you will see when you get back everything will be here at the same way. I’ve done that a couple of times.
I’d never say that it’s greedy in any way, shape or form. LingQ is a great resource. You should not be surprised by the fact that you have to pay a couple of bucks for your data to be kept – they’ve got to pay for those servers after all. So please, don’t be ridiculous.
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They keep your data for 90 days
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I don’t think membership is expensive but that is entirely subjective and it depends on your circumstances. You should be able to take a break without losing your data. I didn’t know you had to pay a maintenance fee but if that’s true it seems a bit self defeating, it will just stop people coming back after a break. It’s unfair to compare the cost of Lingq to the cost of Netflix, it’s apples and oranges. Consider the value not the cost. Learning a language is an investment that can change your life, watching the entire Friends box set for the 18th time is just wasting your life.
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