Posted by hussein-khalil 12/15/2025
Ask HN: Is building a calm, non-gamified learning app a mistake?
I intentionally avoided gamification, streaks, subscriptions, and engagement tricks. The goal was calm learning — fewer distractions, more focus.
I’m starting to wonder if this approach is fundamentally at odds with today’s market.
For those who’ve built or used learning tools: – Does “calm” resonate, or is it too niche? – What trade-offs have you seen when avoiding gamification?
Not here to promote — genuinely looking for perspective.
It's a massive trap because leaning into monetization drastically improves income,
This is the biggest, easiest predictor of software success. If you're not using your own app every day, there's no reason for other people to as well, save for network effect type apps.
It could mean anything from "immersiveness" to "the devil incarnate"
In my opinion it’s about your ethical stance and who your target audience is, and whether you’re trying to make a ton of money or just enough to survive. You’re obviously going to fight an uphill battle if you don’t employ any such (predatory?) marketing tactics. However, you could position yourself as explicitly standing against those and that might attract a smaller but loyal user base.
If you’re lucky, and build something good, and people talk about it, you might find that you’ll get users regardless. However, at the end of the day, what matters is whether you can keep the lights on, so you may have to relax some of your stances and rules or find ways to market your product that don’t fall into the categories you’ve described.