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Part 3 of 3: Fastest growing Duolingo courses?

Lisa M. Beck

Subsections:

- Smartphone usage

- Some final perspectives on access to the World Wide Web

- Not the cash cow some were hoping it would be

- Globalization and its effects

- Not all baskets are equal, despite our best efforts

- The robots are coming and they don’t need a market basket …

- The tide may have been high at one point, but it didn’t lift all boats

- Some experts weigh in

- The WWW may turn into a cash cow for some after all

- The limits to growth

- If you’ve got a depth finder, some boats do appear to be lifting

- Countries with rising boats and …

- Growth in lang. vs. growth in pop. — German, Spanish, and Turkish

- Hope for the future

Note: The original post grew to be so long that I ultimately decided to divide it into three parts.

Links to Part 1 and Part 2 are below:

Part 1/3: Fastest growing Duolingo courses?

Part 2/3: Fastest growing Duolingo courses?

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Part 3 of this series is more or less a wrap up covering the World Wide Web as well as language

and population trends. You’ll also find a bit more in this section on smartphone penetration.

As is true of previous sections, I tried to cite as much of this as possible via hyperlinks to

sources, so if you’re curious about the source and don’t see it mentioned, click on the link to find

out more.

Smartphone usage

Part 2 focused quite a bit on access to the internet or, more precisely, the number of internet

users as a percentage of a country’s population (aka internet penetration), but it must be

acknowledged that it is difficult to talk about internet penetration without also mentioning

smartphone penetration, since the very notion of a smartphone is a phone that can access the

internet. And with respect to smartphones, specifically, Turkey may have had one of the largest

spurts in smartphone penetration than any other country between 2013 and 2015. The source I

used did not include a full listing of countries for each year, but Turkey, which was listed for

both years, showed a growth rate of 50%. It was followed closely by Malaysia (47%), Ukraine

(47%), and Vietnam (44%) (figures rounded). Among those countries listed for both 2013 and

2015 (in the source I had access to), the following made up the top 10:

I would imagine interest in learning foreign languages may grow as smartphone use increases

simply for the fact that smartphones give users access to tools that help them build their language

skills. The same can probably also be said of internet penetration in general.

If you’d like to corroborate,

refute, and/or expand my

findings, the source

referenced above (click on the

hyperlink) provides a link to

the original source and from

there you can download a

PDF file of the full report.

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Some final perspectives on access to the World Wide Web

In Part 2, I delved a bit into internet penetration rates for various regions and countries. To put

some of that into perspective, let’s compare the rise in mobile cellular subscriptions to the rise of

internet penetration. In 1983 nobody had a mobile cellular subscription. In fact, it wouldn’t be

until March of that year that the first 1G network would even be launched. By 2000, there were

12 mobile subscriptions for every 100 people worldwide. In five years, that number would

almost triple. The next five years would see those numbers double and today (as of 2015), we

have a worldwide mobile cellular subscription rate of more than 98 per 100 people.

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Not the cash cow some were hoping it would be

Some might scoff at what kind of penetration rates we can see with internet access. For starters,

rates of growth for both the world population and GDP are declining and will be far lower than

what they have been in the past couple of decades. After all, there are limits to growth. But

despite that, with an internet penetration/user rate of less than 50%, I believe there is still some

room to grow. It is true that internet penetration has slowed, and it doesn’t look likely that it will

reach the saturation levels of mobile cellular use, but I think it will be above 50% in the next five

years and if you’re optimistic about how income will be distributed in the next 10, and factor in

the rise of the smartphone, we could even see a world internet penetration rate of 60% by 2025.

But perhaps less important than income distribution is the dawning realization that as cool and

wonderful and educational as the World Wide Web may be, it has not yet shown itself to be a

catalyst for the type of productivity that creates jobs or puts cold, hard cash in your pocket. As

James Surowiecki writes in “Gross Domestic Freebie”:

Although the digital economy creates new ways to make money, digitization doesn’t require a lot

of workers: you can come up with an idea, write a piece of software, and distribute it to hundreds

of millions of people with ease. That’s fundamentally different from physical products which

require much more labor to produce and distribute.

This reminds me of “premature mechanization,” something that

actually reduces yields and leaves rural inhabitants with nothing to do. In east Asia after

the Second World War, mechanisation and communist collectivisation in countries

including North Korea, China, and Vietnam led to hunger and starvation, as it had

already done in the Soviet Union.

—From How Asia Works p. 223-224

And maybe that is exactly the stage many countries are at with the World Wide Web and modern

forms of technology. Premature mechanization paved the way for a surplus of unskilled workers

in much the same way modern technology is doing now. Any of you searched for a job lately? I

wouldn’t blame you for not wanting to waste your time, but, depending on the site, ads seeking

people with advanced IT skills and/or computer languages (with the certification to prove it)

abound. Even on sites that have a “careers” section you will find that many of them seem

primarily interested in web developers and the like. If you’re a Millennial, it might steer you in a

direction that could be successful for you one day. If not, you may be wondering if the

investment of time would be worth it. Could you “catch up” to all of the Millennials pursuing the

same thing? They may not have been born with a “silver spoon” in their mouths, but they were

born with a mobile phone in their hands, and despite the complaints of sky-high college loans to

pay back, that does give them an advantage over others. As for the rest, good luck. In a world

where a robot can vacuum your carpet (Rumba), answer your questions (Siri and Alexa), drive

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your car (Google), or even take your order for food and drink (coming soon to restaurants

everywhere), we are increasingly less dependent on humans who can perform those same

services.

History, like temptation, can sometimes repeat itself. And temptation doesn’t always take the

form of a fast sports car you can’t afford or the scent of a freshly baked Cinnabon at your local

mall. Like an Eve in the Garden of Eden, sometimes temptation is the quest for knowledge.

Many of us have been eating from this “Tree of Knowledge” we call the World Wide Web for

some time now. Its fruits have hung low and we have sampled widely of its crisp, colorful, and

juicy fruits. As mouth watering as they may be, let’s hope that history, like temptation, doesn’t

repeat itself and lead us into hunger and starvation.

What “Gross Domestic Freebie” doesn’t talk about is how the advent of the web appears to give

new meaning to the concept of “race to the bottom.” For every one entrepreneur trying to make a

buck through the web, there’s probably 10 others waiting in the wings willing to do the very

same thing at a lower cost (to get the business) or for free (to get the experience). And the World

Wide Web makes it so much easier and cost efficient to find them. In the past, an employer

might be content to hang on to his employees rather than spend time and money on the search for

new ones. In the past, employers sought employees via classified ads in publications made of

newspaper; now an employer can set up a website with a section dedicated to “careers” and have

a constant pool of potential candidates from which to choose. In the past, a company might hire a

market research firm to collect insight on consumers or the potential popularity of a new product

or service. Now companies can easily set up an online presence and conduct such research

themselves. Granted, the big firms will probably still rely on a reputable market research firm (at

least for a few more years), but smaller ones have a number of different ways to not only cull

that data, but to analyze it as well. And if help is needed, the World Wide Web certainly makes it

easier to find a market research consultant who can help at a much lower cost than what a market

research firm would charge. This isn’t just my personal observation. In an article titled, “The

Future of Market Research,” data scientist Preriit Souda writes:

As part of a paper (sic), we have been interviewing several extremely talented young

professionals in the (sic) market research industry and an overwhelming number of them

have said that they see no hope of the MR industry surviving beyond 10-15 years

(max)…. Given present trends, I feel that we will no longer be the sole collectors of data

that can influence marketing decisions, but be just one of the many in the market of data

providers. In the future, data will be coming from a host of technology companies (some

of whom we know today and some we will come to know soon), internal company

systems and similar. Survey data will be just one amongst several data sources. Hence

there are limited years for us to enjoy the hegemony on marketing data…. While some

market researchers will transform themselves into data scientists or insight consultants,

others will be left behind in a shrunken industry. Insight consultants will be a

metamorphosis between traditional market researchers and consultants.

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Globalization and its effects

I contend that what we see happening in hiring trends and industries such as market research (as

well as publishing and other similar industries), is just a harbinger of things to come for other

industries across the globe. Emphasis on “globe,” because really this is all just a manifestation of

globalization, which influences the World Wide Web just as much as the World Wide Web

influences globalization. And we’ve actually already seen some of this unfold.

It began with things like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a trade deal

developed and implemented by the leaders of Canada, Mexico, and the United States.

Purportedly, such a trade deal was to have brought “good-paying American jobs” to the U.S.

Nevertheless, you don’t have to watch the news to know that U.S. wages have been stagnating

for some time now. Mexico signed NAFTA to gain greater access to the U.S. market, but more

than 20 years after its signing, it doesn’t appear that the average worker in Mexico has benefitted

either. For an article that points out some of the reasons for this, read “Did Nafta Actually Help

Mexico?” Canada, reluctant to sign NAFTA, ultimately did so for fear that it would be cut out

of trade deals and markets with Mexico. We sometimes humorously refer to this as FoMO, but

Canada may have fared the best of all. Be that as it may, NAFTA is just one example of this

globalization that few are seeing the benefits of. In an opinion piece by Deutsche Welle’s

business editor, “Protectionism a world-saving instrument?” Henrik Böhme writes:

And few would question the dark sides of globalization, among them inhumane working

conditions in poor nations, exploitation and even slavery. In the industrialized world -

people, who've lost their jobs as their employment has become too expensive. In short,

lots (sic) of people who've been left to their own devices and now see themselves as

losers of globalization.

Not all baskets are equal, despite our best efforts

Furthermore, though globalization has made it easier to hire cheaper labor, that doesn’t always

mean that the product or service produced from it will be sold at a cheaper cost. In 2015, the

Consumer Price Index (CPI) was 237.0. The CPI grew 176% between 1976 and 1995 and just

51% between 1996 and 2015 (a drop of 71%). In 2015, the average U.S. wage was $48,098.63.

The average wage grew 181% between 1976 and 1995 and 86% between 1996 and 2015 (a drop

of just 53%). One might look at that and think that while the rate of increase in average wages

may have slowed, the CPI has slowed even more, so everyone is better off, right? Not so fast.

First of all, the market basket that makes up the CPI changes from year to year. The market

basket for 1976 looked a whole lot different than the one for 2015. I couldn’t get my hands on a

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copy of the market basket for 1976, but I’m pretty sure it didn’t include mobile phone or internet

fees. Nevertheless, I was able to cobble together a short list of some common items that one

would think would be a part of any market basket — bread, milk, gasoline, car. Granted, a

considerable amount of thought and effort goes into establishing the yearly CPI. In the U.S., the

Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) prepares these statistics monthly and an FAQ on its website

explains how they are collected:

Each month, BLS data collectors called economic assistants visit or call thousands of retail

stores, service establishments, rental units, and doctors' offices, all over the United States, to

obtain information on the prices of the thousands of items used to track and measure price

changes in the CPI. These economic assistants record the prices of about 80,000 items each

month, representing a scientifically selected sample of the prices paid by consumers for goods

and services purchased.

Despite these meticulous efforts, when I look at just those four items listed earlier, and despite

the fact that only cars and gasoline are likely to involve less expensive labor from overseas, my

calculations no longer lead me to believe that the price of consumer goods is rising slower than

the rise in wages. The average decline in prices for those four main consumer goods you see

above actually dropped a mere 52% (not 71%) between the 20 years before NAFTA was signed

and the 20 years that followed it. That’s a full percentage point lower than the slowing rate of

growth for wages. This might make more sense if you view the charts below:

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And when you factor in other items into that market basket, the so-called “cheaper goods”

globalization was to have brought, don’t look very cheap any more. Like fast food chains who

try to sell you a package deal by advertising that it is cheaper than buying the items

separately, it pays to collect the data on your own and do your own math. There’s a lot of

pressure from many different angles to paint a rosy picture of globalization even if reality tells us

differently.

The robots are coming and they don’t need a market basket … or much of anything else

It would seem to me that in this type of economic environment, where wages stagnate and the

cost of goods aren’t becoming commensurately cheaper, productivity will eventually come to a

slow but screeching halt. As if that wasn’t enough, jobs are now being replaced by technology in

the form of mechanization, robots, and other forms that do not require human labor. Humans

may be infallible. They may get sick, they may require decent working conditions and assume

their employer will provide some form of health care, they may expect days off for holidays,

and, eventually, one day, they will want a pension or some form of stipend for having so

faithfully served.

A robot or machine requires none of these things. A robot or machine may require service and

maintenance, but, it will never complain about working too much or not getting enough time to

spend with its family. It will never suggest that thing known as “work-life balance.” And, in the

end, if it is decided that it should be hauled off to the junk yard, its employer need not worry

about grumblings and shouts of protest. The World Wide Web simply helps facilitate all of this.

Open source communities for a myriad of technology-related inventions can be found throughout

the World Wide Web. And who’s complaining? After all, the beauty of this thing called “the

web” is that it allows greater access to information, but its access, totalitarian societies

notwithstanding, is open to all — both those who will use it for the greater good and those who

will exploit it for a single good. The trouble is, robots don’t have dreams and desires, the kind

which cause a human to spend money earned, the kind which keep injecting energy into an

economy. Instead, sharks of the world will find that their companies and the economy upon

which they rest is a sea of disgruntled workers with little to lose.

The tide may have been high at one point, but it didn’t lift all boats

Another thing that’s been said about this thing called globalization is that it’s akin to a rising tide

that will lift all boats, but with declining populations and productivity, can we say that the tide is

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really rising? If you look at the following chart, which I came across in the article, “These 6

Charts Show Why The Average American Is Fed Up,” it does appear that some boats are,

indeed, rising.

An image from the article just cited.

But, if some of these boats represent industries of the past, I’d say there’s quite a few that have

some holes in them and as valiant as it may be to try to bail out the water that is seeping in,

unless you’re the captain of the ship, there comes a point when it makes sense to jump ship and

either swim to safer shores or board a new ship. As for the captains of industry who want to hang

on, perhaps they can learn to steer their boats to safer shores. And perhaps the World Wide Web

will help them find them. Perhaps they can use the World Wide Web to learn a new language

and tap into new markets. As I’ve already mentioned, Duolingo has several to choose from. Or,

perhaps, it may be a good time to learn a computer language and dip one’s toes into new and

unchartered waters. The web can help with that, too.

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Some experts weigh in

If nothing else, the World Wide Web, in a perfect world, would lead to market optimization

where everyone is free to find the lowest prices with the best service. The question is, how low is

it going to go and while there may seem to be a never ending supply of races to the bottom, what

about the aftermath? What about all those who find themselves sinking in these turbulent waters

or standing on some distant shore struggling to get back into the “rising tide” of this optimal

market? Can they just be ignored? Will they be ignored? At least one expert on what the future

might bring predicts that some of the effects of globalization will lead to greater social unrest in

the years to come. In 2052, Norwegian academic Jørgen Randers writes:

… ask a Detroit autoworker who has not gotten a real wage increase for the last 30 years,

how he would feel extending this period by another 40 years …. (p. 164)

Randers isn’t the only one raising awareness on this topic. In a “free-ranging conversation”

printed in The Sun, American sociologist Dalton Conley shares some thoughts that touch on

this subject:

We’re seeing an enormous increase in wealth at the top, with stagnant or declining

fortunes from the middle on down…. Many thought that, after the recession in 2008,

we’d see what we saw between 1929 and 1931: a steep drop in inequality. After the Wall

Street crash in 1929 there was no government bailout of the financial sector, and the free

market was allowed to destroy many great fortunes and level the playing field. In 2008

we saw a very different policy response…. We didn’t let the market reset itself, and so

inequality has increased instead of declined. If these trends continue, rich people could

conclude that the easiest thing to do is to make sure everyone has a minimum income. It

might stop people from complaining when all those middle class jobs we’ve lost don’t

come back. Back in the sixties, the negative income tax was seen as setting a minimum

income, but today it might be seen as buying off the 99 percent.

—From “The Hand We’re Dealt,” printed in The Sun in its February 2015 issue, excerpt

from p. 11

While Conley focuses on what has led to the current state of affairs in the United States, Randers

goes on to write about what the future will look like in more general terms:

… stagnation leads to lower productivity growth … not immediately … but in the long

term. When the growth of the economic pie slows down over a period of years, the

distribution of income and wealth normally becomes more uneven. The poor lose out,

and the gap between rich and poor increases. This in turn leads to social tension and … to

conflict — which unavoidably slows productivity growth. Slow productivity growth in

turn leads to slower growth in GDP, a smaller pie to share, more conflict, and even

slower growth. Until the spiral is stopped by wise politics or redistribution of some kind

— at least redistribution of opportunity — society locks itself into a slow-growth

syndrome…. The effect will be particularly bad in free-market economies with low tax

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rates and weak traditions for redistribution. Here unemployment and inequity will slow

the growth in gross productivity. (p. 163)

He writes further on this topic, specifically, his observations on the inevitable social tensions that

will arise if inequity increases as productivity slows:

… tensions can no longer be released through distribution of new pieces from a growing

pie. The only solution will be to redistribute the existing pie…. It is difficult to forecast

exactly where and when such relaxation of the accumulated tension through forced

redistribution will occur, much like it was difficult to forecast the exact dates of the Arab

Spring or the collapse of the Soviet Union. But the fact that it is hard to forecast the details

does not make it less likely. It is only a question of time and circumstance. (p. 167)

And then concludes with a bit on the scope of the revolts that he anticipates will erupt from the

predicted social tension:

These revolts will not be limited to the rich world; one can see emerging tensions among

the masses and the newly rich Chinese millionaires, the Russian oligarchs, the Saudi kings,

the Colombian and Mexican drug barons. Some elites will be willing to fight back to keep

their unfair share, while others may give in piecemeal. (p. 169)

Rising tide or not, social tension appears to be a potential consequence of globalization and one

with the potential to sink a boat or two. And in this day and age, that tension probably won’t look

like musketeers throwing boxes of tea over the side of a ship.

Then again, it appears that both Conley, with his references to negative income taxes and

guaranteed minimum incomes, and Randers, with his talk of wealth redistribution, are referring

to changes that move society more toward some type of new world socialism where even Conley

acknowledges:

My friends in Scandinavia who lean pretty far left have seen the negative sides of a

guaranteed income. They say that some people just want to live on the dole and lack

motivation.

—From “The Hand We’re Dealt,” p. 11

While there may be some truth to that, a guaranteed minimum income is already present in

some form throughout the world, to include the United States (e.g., welfare, social security,

Alaska’s oil checks), but as far as socialism is concerned most equate it with free health care and

free education. Free health care (aka “universal health care”) is found in several countries

throughout the world. Free education, while not as prevalent beyond certain levels, is found in

some countries as well. Such free services are not without their critics who usually point to the

lack of quality many often ascribe to them.

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But despite such criticism, both are very popular ideas among Millennials in the U.S., which

explained, in part, the popularity of Bernie Sanders in the last U.S. presidential election. Sanders

is a self-proclaimed “democratic socialist” who included ideas such as “free education” in his

campaign platform. In the end, however, the Bernie movement was defeated (perhaps better

described as ultimately “trumped” by the so-called “deplorables”) in the last election. I can’t

speak for the other Millennials of this world, but will it be these same Bernie Millennials who

will break out in violent revolt for redistribution and/or settle for it to be piecemealed out to

them?

Regardless, inequality affects more than just the stereotypical friendly Millennial who lives

down the street in his parents’ basement. Some might be a bit more threatening and hard to

please. Some might not even be Millennials and piecemeal offerings might not suffice.

When you think of countries that offer free health care and free education, the Scandinavian

countries most prominently come to mind, but 58 countries have some form of universal health

coverage, according to “The political economy of universal health coverage,” a background

paper for the inaugural global symposium on health systems research, which was held in 2010.

Some of these countries are rich, and some are poor, but to my knowledge the decision taken to

move to a universal health care system wasn’t brought about by violent revolt. I don’t recall any

shouts of “Give us Universal Health Care or give us death!” In fact, I think the claim could be

made that such decisions were made out of a concern for the greater good and a desire for what

some might consider a more “just” society. However, to be fair to the claims made by the

previously cited academics, when the economic pie begins to shrink, it is very possible that

people will clamor for more of the pie to be redistributed and they might want more than health

care and they might not ask for it politely or protest in a civilized manner about how thin their

sliver of pie is.

The WWW may turn into a cash cow for some after all

As for the increased inequality that may be coming, we’re already starting to see some of the

effects of that via the World Wide Web itself. In an attempt to turn the WWW into a cash-

making machine, some are beginning to put locks down on how much service or information you

can access through a website. Let’s start with something as simple as an e-mail account. Most of

the providers of such a service are beginning to ask you to make your account “more secure” by

adding your mobile cell phone number. Previously, it’s been optional, but I have a feeling that is

about to change. So, good luck keeping your “free” e-mail account if you don’t choose to

provide your cell phone number. Most will probably be willing to give up that information. After

all, it is such a small price to pay for the ability to communicate freely with others. But, if anyone

has looked at their internet service provider fee lately, how “free” is this really? The thing is, as

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jobs get scarcer and paychecks get smaller, some may be willing to go without mobile cellular

service and just communicate via the “free” internet. Good luck to you there. It’s looking more

and more likely that all the ways we’ve become accustomed to communicating via the World

Wide Web will soon be tied to a mobile cellular subscription. It looks more and more like you

won’t be able to create an account without providing a mobile phone number. In fact, this is

already happening. In addition to that, has anyone begun to notice the increased presence of

paywalls yet? You’ll even notice that sites previously lauded for not charging are upping the

amount of ask on their suggested donation, and not by a little … by amounts that make you blink

twice to see if what you are seeing is real. Is some sort of soft paywall not far behind? Using

Wikipedia as an example, might the poor one day be relegated to just the “Simple English”

pages of the “people’s encyclopedia?” Better get those donations in before it’s too late. In all

seriousness though, if anyone thinks this is a society of haves and have-nots now, wait until that

happens.

Furthermore, be prepared to continue replacing outdated operating systems if you want to

continue to access all that the World Wide Web has to offer. A 10-year old operating system is

probably going to have some difficulty getting past things like “Shockwave Flash,” which is so

very prevalent throughout the web. In fact, you may one day find yourself restricted to pages that

don’t come with any ads (good luck to you there). Whether unemployed or underemployed,

making do with a paycheck that isn’t keeping up with inflation, or facing sharp increases in the

prices you used to take for granted (e.g., health care), be prepared to replace the items needed to

access the World Wide Web with as much frequency as was expected in the past. Eventually,

however, there’s only so much a fisherman can net from the ocean. When fish stocks (read:

wallets) are depleted, it’s pretty tough to regenerate them.

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The limits to growth

Whatever comes to pass as globalization and the World Wide Web evolve, the charts I created

below

only further lead me to the conclusion that the promises of potential from either may be a bit

empty because as population and productivity decline, the revenue that industries once had to

“play with” is going to start drying up. And when that happens, industries across the globe are

going to learn to be a lot more frugal and much more judicious with how they spend that

revenue. Some will learn to do things for themselves that previously would have been performed

by outside vendors. And even those that continue to outsource various functions, rest assured,

now, more than ever, they’ll be looking for the most cost efficient of these. The World Wide

Web will help these companies find them.

As I wrote that last paragraph, however, I asked myself Is this really true? What do I base this on

— this notion that productivity is declining? I theorize that I’ve come to believe this simply

because I’ve heard about it and read about it for so long that I just assume it to be true, but as for

what it is based on, it appears that it isn’t such an easy question to answer. The declines we’ve

seen in productivity growth since 1995 have been sizeable and yet it appears that there is no

definitive explanation or consensus on the reasons for this. For an article that at least posits some

theories, read “The Mystery of Declining Productivity Growth,” by Alan Blinder, a professor

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of economics and public affairs at Princeton University and former vice chairman of the Federal

Reserve. In case you can’t access that article, or choose not to, I’ll include a quote from it below:

In somewhat different ways, John Fernald of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

and Robert Gordon of Northwestern University, two leading productivity experts, have

argued that the greatest productivity gains from information technology came years ago,

and that recent inventions look puny by comparison. Compare Facebook with the

Internet, or the Apple Watch with the personal computer. Maybe inventiveness has not

waned, but the productivity-enhancing impacts of inventions have.

Oddly enough, the previously cited article makes no mention of income inequality, which may

be a big reason why many don’t feel that globalization has been beneficial and why productivity

has slowed. This one does mention income inequality — “The rich, the poor and the growing

gap between them” — but the fact that it compares the U.S. to Brazil in one of its charts isn’t

exactly comforting. No offense to Brazil, but it hasn’t been making headlines for its economic

prosperity lately. This one here — “A Giant Statistical Round-Up of the Income Inequality

Crisis in 16 Charts” — paints a clearer picture of what’s going on. No comparison to Brazil in

this one, but I don’t know if reading it will make you feel that much better about the future.

Though this second article focuses on income inequality in the U.S., don’t be surprised if what

you see in it isn’t true in other parts of the world, especially in those parts where the boats aren’t

rising on that rising tide of “global opportunity.”

Regardless of whether you’re in the top 1% or bottom 99, I think most would agree that

productivity can be steered in many different directions. When demand is high you can trim the

sails and go full speed ahead, when low you can let them out and pull back. You can sail toward

the wind (your competition) or sail away from it. You can even keep it afloat when all signals are

telling you to abandon ship. But when the effects of a venture — whether you want to call it a

fad, a trend, a new development, or even a new era — show repeated declines in productivity,

maybe it’s time to realize that it is “in irons.”

If you’ve got a depth finder, some boats do appear to be lifting

In the meantime, remember that image I showed you from “These 6 Charts Show Why The

Average American Is Fed Up”? Well, some of those countries whose manufacturing wages are

converging with those of the U.S., also happen to be countries whose inhabitants are learning

English via Duolingo. Below is a chart that shows you the numbers on this:

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In addition to what you see above, Duolingo will soon offer to Chinese speakers Spanish and

French. (Spanish was in beta and French was 50% complete as of January 2, 2017.) If you’re

wondering why, you may want to read “Trump Opens Doors for China in Latin America”

and China’s Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in

Africa. You’ll notice that many of the countries whose manufacturing wages are converging with

those of the U.S. are found in Asia. In addition to the countries seen in that chart, Duolingo also

teaches English to Hindi speakers (2.9 million enrolled) and Indonesian speakers (1.4 million

enrolled). Hindi, which is spoken mostly in India, is the fourth most spoken language in the

world.

Although India and Indonesia may not be converging as closely to U.S. manufacturing wages as

the other countries seen in the previously mentioned article — Korea, Japan, Brazil, China —

both are considered up-and-coming emerging markets.

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Though Brazil and the other countries in Asia are ahead of India and Indonesia in terms of

production and per capita GDP (PPP), India’s GDP growth rate has been on the rise during the

past couple of years and in 2014, Indonesia had a higher growth rate than Korea, the U.S., Japan,

and Brazil. What you may find even more interesting is the composition of employment in these

countries:

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Indians and Indonesians are more likely to be employed in agriculture than the other four

countries in the chart above (49.7% in India and 34.8% in Indonesia), but both have greater

percentages of its people employed in industry than the U.S.

Straight from a World Bank pop-up window, industry is a sector that consists of

mining and quarrying, manufacturing, construction, and

public utilities (electricity, gas, and water) ….

As for the U.S. and the high rate of employment in the service sector, there are reasons why the

U.S., once known for its strength in industry, is now largely a service-based economy. Writing in

general terms, the World Bank site provides this:

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In the textbook case of economic development, labour flows from agriculture and other

labour-intensive primary activities to industry and finally to the services sector; in the

process, workers migrate from rural to urban areas.

While each country is different, to include the U.S., such a statement could certainly apply to it

as well as other countries. The World Bank also adds that

Men still make up the majority of people employed in all three sectors, but the gender gap

is biggest in industry. Employment in agriculture is also male-dominated, although not as

much as industry. Segregating one sex in a narrow range of occupations significantly

reduces economic efficiency by reducing labor market flexibility and thus the economy’s

ability to adapt to change. This segregation is particularly harmful for women, who have a

much narrower range of labor market choices and lower levels of pay than men.

The statement made by the World Bank above may be true worldwide, but I should point out

some differences in the six countries studied in this section — Brazil, China, Japan, India,

Indonesia, and Korea. (Though you see the U.S. in the charts above, I do not include the United

States in the next few observations, which go beyond what you see in the charts above.) When

looking at the averages for these six countries, women actually dominate in all but industry.

China has slightly more men working in agriculture, as does Japan, Korea, and Brazil, but India

and Indonesia have more women than men working in the field of agriculture and by significant

amounts. (Observations are based off of percentages for each individual country and not sheer

numbers alone.) Among these countries, Brazil has the smallest percentage of women working in

agriculture (almost twice as many men work in this sector) and industry (two and a half times

more men work in this sector). The country with the highest percentage of women working in

industry is China, followed by India. Brazil and Korea have the lowest percentage of women

working in industry, but Japan is not far behind. The majority of women in Japan work in the

service sector. This is true of all the countries in this group with the exception of India where

agriculture is the largest sector of employment for women.

Though I eliminated the United States from the observations in the preceding paragraph, I should

also point out that in the United States, the service sector (like many of these other countries), is

also the largest sector of employment for women, but it is also the largest sector for men. It is

only in the service sector, however, that women dominate. The next largest sector of

employment for the United States is industry where men are three and a half times more likely to

be employed than women.

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The charts below reveal some other striking differences between these countries:

Google Public Explorer only shows child labor for Brazil, India, and Indonesia. No data is shown for the other

countries which, presumably, have some type of child labor laws, and they do, but so do Brazil, India, and

Indonesia. Furthermore, data is not provided for China, which has been well known for its lack of human rights

practices, but it, too, has child labor laws. That said, combating child labor is only as effective as the ability to

enforce it and in this area, even a country like the U.S. has some difficulty. For a good article on this, read “How

Common Is Child Labor in the U.S.?” Presence of child labor is not the same in all countries. Levels of it are

divided into children who work and children who work and attend school. Brazil has a higher percentage of

children who both work and attend school (than India and Indonesia). Not surprisingly then, Brazil has the highest

percentage of children working in the services sector (compared to India and Indonesia); of these three countries,

India has the highest level working in the manufacturing sector. All three seem to be converging right around the

60% mark for percentage of children working in agriculture. As you can see, rates of child labor are falling, which

is a worldwide trend, although it is still a common practice in some countries. Among those countries that employ

children, Brazil, India, and Indonesia are not the worst of these. For an article on six countries where the practice

continues unabated, read “Child Labor Is Declining Worldwide, But It’s Thriving in These Six Countries.”

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Countries with rising boats and which ones are learning English via Duolingo

Before I get into the aforementioned countries (see Languages of Asia Duolingo has warming

in the incubator …) and those who are learning English via Duolingo, I should also mention a

language for English speakers that has made it out of the incubator — Vietnamese. Duolingo

hatched Vietnamese just this last October, and already 418,000 are enrolled in it. Those who

already speak Vietnamese have had the opportunity to learn English via Duolingo for more than

a couple of years now and as of January 7, 2017, had 5.2 million enrolled in it.

By the way, Vietnamese, while not the largest language after English in the U.S., has been the

fastest growing. It grew 599% between 1980 and 2010, which was more than twice as fast as

Spanish during that time period. With 1.4 million speakers, it is the sixth most spoken language

in the U.S. Only English, Spanish, Chinese, French/French Creole, and Tagalog have more

speakers. Korean, which also has more than a million speakers in the U.S., is right behind

Vietnamese at #7; Hindi is #13. To view the rankings of the others, see “The Most Spoken

Languages In America.”

The one country in the chart showcasing manufacturing wages converging with the U.S. that lies

outside of Asia — Brazil — is a country that, as mentioned previously, is the largest Portuguese

speaking country in the world. 7.6 million English speakers have enrolled in this course which

was released April 25, 2013. This is just a fifth of the Portuguese speakers who are enrolled in

the English course (at last count 37.3 million). (Numbers for both Portuguese and Vietnamese

were collected December 28, 2016.) Both Brazil and Vietnam are considered emerging markets.

Since I haven’t been tracking the rate of growth of Duolingo’s Asian languages, I don’t have that

information to share with you, so instead, I collected some other information about these

languages you may find interesting. I continue to use the languages of the countries found in the

chart showing manufacturing wages converging with those of the U.S. and then add in Hindi

(since it is the fourth largest language in the world) and Vietnamese (since it was the fastest

growing language in the U.S. between 1980 and 2010). I added English in the Rate of Growth

chart for comparison. Internet penetration was presented by country (in the upper right chart),

and, to keep things simple, I only included the country where the majority of speakers are found.

For reasons that would be tedious to detail, I happened to conduct a cursory search of the web

related to Japanese and Koreans learning English. This search hinted that Koreans may have less

interest in learning English compared to their Japanese counterparts, but enrollment in

Duolingo’s English course doesn’t reflect that. In fact, since Korea’s internet penetration is

slightly lower than Japan’s right now, Duolingo, in time, may actually reveal that Koreans are

even more interested than they are now in learning English via Duolingo. Currently, Koreans are

already showing more interest than the Japanese — 5% of Korean speakers worldwide and just

3% of Japanese speakers. My projections for 2020 (which you will see in the next set of charts),

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don’t indicate that Korean interest in learning English will be as strong, comparatively, in the

coming years (due to a declining population rate and other factors), but I guess only time can tell.

The next set of charts compare the same Asian languages you see in the preceding chart to the

popularity of one of Duolingo’s more established courses — Portuguese. As you can see,

Chinese speakers and Vietnamese speakers seem especially keen on learning English through

Duolingo (compared to the other languages). Chinese speakers, of course, far outnumber the

other languages in the chart, but Vietnamese has less than a tenth of the number of Chinese

speakers (worldwide); Vietnamese already has half the number of Chinese users by enrollment.

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The chart above calculates users by day simply from taking total number of users as displayed on Duolingo’s

website and dividing that figure by the number of days the course has been available to the public. It is not a

reflection of how many users log in to Duolingo on a daily basis.

What report wouldn’t be complete without at least one go at reading the tea leaves. In the next

set of charts, I attempt to do some of that. In the chart on top, I simply calculated the numbers

based on what they would be if rates of growth stayed exactly the same (not likely), but it evens

the playing field a bit so that you can see the relative popularity a bit more accurately. Otherwise,

you might think that English was only half as popular with the Chinese as it is with the

Portuguese (and it may indeed be if my predictions in the bottom chart are accurate). However,

since the English for Portuguese speakers course was released more than a year before the

English for Chinese speakers course, that would not be a fair assessment of Chinese interest in

learning English through Duolingo. In the top chart, you can see that the numbers of Portuguese

speakers is still higher than those for Chinese speakers, but all of these numbers could change as

the future unfolds. As for the bottom chart, it was calculated using population projections from

“List of countries by past and future population,” specifically the subsection titled, “Estimates

between the years 2020 and 2050 (in thousands).” (If you cannot link to the source, it uses

Census Bureau data for its calculations.) I also used a combination of data from Internet Live

Stats and the World Bank to predict future rates of growth in internet penetration. The figure for

Portuguese seems a bit high, but Brazil’s population is expected to grow almost as fast as

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Indonesia’s in the coming years (although much slower than other countries in South America).

And, if you remember, it was among the top 10 countries with the fastest growing

smartphone penetration between 2013 and 2015 with a growth rate of 35.9% and an overall

smartphone penetration of 41%. Japan is also among the top 10 (and only has a smartphone

penetration of 39%), but its overall internet penetration is virtually tapping the end of its limits to

growth with a penetration of 91%, and it, along with China and Korea, will see significant

declines in population growth rate between 2020 and 2050. This is especially true for Japan.

Brazil, on the other hand, has plenty of room to grow in this area. Its internet penetration was just

66.4% in 2016. If it can weather itself against the inflation that Venezuela has seen, it has the

potential for continued growth in terms of internet penetration. Though Brazil is one of the

countries that appears to have benefitted from globalization, during the last 10 years its inflation

has risen substantially. Only Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela have fared worse.

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Regardless, Brazil’s median age is substantially lower than Japan’s and will be as the future

progresses. Japan’s overall population is expected to fall in coming years, and this will cause the

pool of potential Duolingo devotees coming from Japan to shrink. In 2015, Brazil’s median age

was 31.1; Japan’s (the oldest in the world) was 46.5. By 2030, Brazil’s median age is expected to

be 36.9; Japan’s is expected to be 52.6.

The question is, at what age are people most interested and capable (i.e., mental capacity and

available time) of learning additional languages? And by 2030 will the need to learn a language

seem as antiquated as counting with an abacus? (For all of us whose one talent in life is learning

languages, let’s hope not!) Either way, my guess is that the best niches for Duolingo to pursue

would be those areas that have younger populations. By the age of 14, people usually know

whether or not they have a gift and/or passion for learning a foreign language and if they pursue

it at all, this is likely to continue at least through the college years (i.e., 22+). So, I collected

some population data by age for South America and the Asian countries discussed in this section.

Figures for countries in North America and for the world were added for comparison.

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The chart above does not include all the age ranges, but the majority of the world’s population is

between the ages of 25 and 54. In fact, this was true for all the countries you see listed in the

chart above. I could have left it at that, but that wouldn’t have been very informative, so I broke

down the populations into 0-24 and 25-54 and then divided each region by those countries whose

0-24 population was greater than its 25-54 population. I did not do this for North America.

(Mexico is the only country whose 0-24 population is larger.) The 0-24 population for the world

is greater than its 25-54 population, but only slightly — 42% of the world's population is

between 0 and 24; 41% are between the ages of 25 and 54. See the notes I added to the chart for

more information.

As for China, its population will still continue to grow, but projections don’t indicate it will grow

as fast as it had previously and not as fast as Brazil or Indonesia. I guess a lot will depend on the

value the Chinese place on learning English and the degree to which the Chinese population can

access a program like Duolingo through the World Wide Web. Furthermore, how easy is it to get

the Chinese to learn about the existence of Duolingo? You can’t want something you don’t know

about.

Currently China’s internet penetration stands at 52.2%, but regardless of infrastructure, China

has been known for strict censorship of the internet and other forms of communication. I would

think Duolingo would be immune to that, but China may also take an interest in creating its own

version of Duolingo as it did with Facebook, outright banning it in 2009 and then creating

WeChat a couple of years later. Facebook isn’t the only website to be banned in China and

China isn’t the only country to impose such bans, but it appears that Duolingo has been exempt

from them. For all the Duolingo fans of this world, myself included, let’s hope no government

would ever want to deprive its citizens of such a useful language learning tool.

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Growth in language vs. growth in population — German, Spanish, and Turkish

Regardless of the effects of globalization, it looks as if the World Wide Web — aka the internet

— is here to stay. And just as it is difficult to talk about access to the internet without also

talking about smartphone penetration, it is equally difficult to talk about worldwide trends of

various world languages without also taking a look at the past. The next couple of charts show

you the changes over time in population and number of language speakers. I’ll let you look at

them and draw your own conclusions, but one thing seems blatantly clear to me. The borders

within which languages were typically contained seem to be disappearing at a rapid rate. As this

trend continues, a resource like Duolingo may be needed more than ever.

I mentioned it earlier, but the chart above really drives the point home that Spanish is an

increasingly popular language. Between 2005 and 2015, the Spanish speakers to German

speakers ratio went from 2.7:1 to 3.4:1, a growth of 47%. A similar trend occurred with Spanish

speakers and Russian speakers during that same time period.

You may also find the German:Turkish ratios to be equally interesting. In 1995, there were 2.3

German speakers for every 1 Turkish speaker. In 2005, there were 1.9 German speakers to every

1 Turkish speaker, and in 2015, 1.3 German speakers to every 1 Turkish speaker. That’s a 43%

drop in that ratio in just one generation of speakers.

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Like the previous chart, this chart also shows a widening gap between Spanish (in all of Latin

America) and Germans. In 1995, the ratio of Spanish to Germans was 4.5:1; in 2005, 4.8:1; and

then, in 2015, it jumped to 5.5:1. That’s a growth in the ratio of 5% between 1995 and 2005 and

16% between 2005 and 2015. Said another way, the growth rate between those two time periods

grew more than 300%.

In the preceding paragraph, I pointed out the ever narrowing gap between the number of German

speakers worldwide and the number of Turkish speakers worldwide. This gap is also happening

in the populations of Germans and Turks, but not quite as drastically. Instead of a 43% drop in

the ratio, the drop is just 29%. This could mean a number of things. For one, it could mean

Germans are learning Turkish (possible). It could mean migrants to Turkey are learning Turkish

(much more likely). However, it could also mean that Turks are learning German, but not at a

rate faster than the rate of growth for the Turkish population. These findings piqued my

curiosity, so I decided to run some development indicators via Google’s Public Explorer and

created the composite of charts you see below. Most of them should be self-explanatory, but I

felt that the “net migration” chart needed an explanation and the one you see below is direct copy

from the explanatory note that Google Public Explorer provides. For more details, hover your

mouse over the question mark next to “Net migration” at this Google Public Explorer link.

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As you can see, Turkey’s population is on the rise, but in terms of growth rate, it does appear to

be slowing (actually declining in recent years). GDP growth rates for both of these countries

appear to be quite volatile.

The data for the category “Public spending on education, total (% GDP)” (chart in the top right

corner) is a bit spotty, but Turkey’s spending in this area from 1995 to 2000 drops

commensurately with the number of migrants Germany took in during the period 1990 to 2000.

In 2000, spending appears to be approaching previous levels, but the fact that Germany’s

spending in this area is on the rise makes one wonder if this may have a lot to do with Germany’s

increase in migrants. If so, one would think the number of German speakers to Turkish speakers

would remain relatively high or at least stay the same. After having studied both languages, I

would have to say that it would be easier for Turks to learn German than for Germans to learn

Turkish. In fact, the Foreign Service Institute rates various languages in terms of difficulty.

German is a Category II language; Turkish is a Category IV. Then again, those categories were

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developed from the perspective of their similarity to English, but all things considered, I do think

it would be easier to teach Turks German than to teach Germans Turkish. Plus, it is a bit much to

expect that a country that has granted a migrant entry should then be expected to learn the

language of the migrant.

At any rate, all of this is assuming migrants are eager to assimilate and Germany is providing

them with the resources needed to assimilate. For example, could more be spent on German

language instruction and programs designed to promote German language and culture? If it is

clear that there exists some sort of resistance to assimilation perhaps some money could be

devoted to exploring the reasons for this and learning how best to bridge that gap.

Lastly, let’s not assume that Germany is the only refuge for migrants. Turkey has clearly taken in

quite a few itself. In 2012, Turkey had a net migration of 2 million people; Germany, 1.25

million. As a percentage of the population for these countries, Turkey’s net migration represents

2.7% of its total population and Germany’s just 1.6%.

Hope for the future

For all the changes rapidly unfolding in society today, whether they be changes in demographics,

the economy, politics, and so many others, one thing remains certain — technology, to include

the World Wide Web — is here to stay. Short of an electromagnetic pulse attack, World War III,

or getting hit by an asteroid, the WWW isn’t going away. So, let me try to leave you with

something of a more hopeful note. It comes from something I read recently and my interpretation

of it is that perhaps our ability to turn the WWW into a cash cow all boils down to “range of

applicability” and “range of adaptation.” In “A ‘New Mediocre’ for the Global Economy?”

American economist Barry Eichengreen writes:

Range of applicability is the number of different sectors or activities to which the

innovations can be productively applied. Thus the steam engine, the innovation at the

heart of the industrial revolution, had only a limited impact on output and productivity

growth because its application was limited for many years to the textile industry and

railways. Electricity had a larger impact on output and productivity growth because it was

possible to apply the technology to a wide range of manufacturing industries, to the

household sector, and elsewhere within its decades of development. The computer

revolution of the mid-twentieth century had a relatively limited impact on economy-wide

rates of output and productivity growth because its application was limited to finance,

wholesale and retail trade, and to the production of computers themselves.

—Printed in Current Affairs in its January 2015 issue, excerpt from p. 27.

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Eichengreen later goes on to mention the “Internet of Things” (IoT) which, indeed, looks

promising, albeit a bit scary due to Big Brother implications, but when I compare something like

the IoT to the steam engine and electricity, I am not comforted in thinking that this will lead us

into the land of plenty. To be fair, Eichengreen does more than just mention IoT. He also

mentions quantum computers, materials made of graphene, and genetic modification (right up

there with IoT for a future ripe with potential for ethical manipulation), but I fail to see how that

puts cash in the pockets of everyday people who are struggling right now. Nevertheless, if we

find ways to make the newest technologies less of something to entertain and amuse us with, and

more of something that we truly cannot live without, we will be moving in a better direction.

And maybe we don’t need to sacrifice our love of entertainment for something that can benefit

the greater good or even ourselves. Perhaps there can be a happy marriage of the two. As a

matter of fact, I happen to think Duolingo is a good example of that and though it may only put

bright, shiny red lingots in your pocket, it stimulates the mind in a fun and entertaining way that

makes people want to come back for more. The more we can harness that desire to use the web

to learn, improve, and find some type of utilitarian applicability for it, the more it may define our

notions of what “productive” really is.

If nothing else, at least turning the focus of our thoughts in this direction — thoughts of how we

can apply and adapt our use of the web and all of the many succulent fruits hanging from its

branches — would make one think that it could lead to something productive in the long run.

Perhaps, as the Guns ‘N Roses song goes, all we need is a little patience. After all, the World

Wide Web, as most people know it, has only been around for the past 15 years or so and it, like

our space program (which has been around three times as long), has failed to become what most

would consider a viable way to put cold, hard cash in one’s pocket. Then again, neither was

developed for such purposes. It is only in a world with dwindling resources that we now hope it

can be some sort of economic engine. Regardless of initial expectations, patience may be

wearing thin. While we wait, people’s wages continue to stagnate, others lose their jobs, and still

others struggle to put food on the table for their families. One can only hope that modern

technology and this thing called the World Wide Web, so pervasive in so many lives, does one

day lead to better lives for us all.

In the meantime, people throughout the world continue to discover one of the web’s brighter,

juicier fruits — Duolingo. I may not have fulfilled your need to know, precisely, which courses

are growing the fastest at this language learning platform, but I hope you learned something

about Duolingo and the world and its web that you didn’t know before. I know I did.