“It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”


― Yogi Berra

My first thought when I saw your question was that there may well come a day when nobody is interested in Esperanto. That might be 100 years off. It might be 200. Who knows? When I saw that you said "30 years" - I think that's very simple. There will still be a lot of interest in Esperanto 30 years from now. I will say that with confidence.

Consider - above all - that Esperanto is about to turn 130 years old. What's changed in 2016 that will kill it off now if two world wars and who knows what else has not?

I learned Esperanto about 20 years ago. At the Aŭtuna Renkontiĝo de Esperanto this fall (https://www.facebook.com/events/1706419916351181/) we lined up by the year we learned Esperanto. Something like two thirds of the people learned Esperanto after me -- and I am not **that** old.

I do think there's a danger in inflating the Duolingo statistics. My sense is that a majority of those 500,000 don't reach the first checkpoint. Something like 2% finish. 1% join the FB group for Esperanto Learners. Still, we see signs of life for Esperanto all around -- and never forget, Esperanto is old. It wasn't invented in 2015. It's been around and will continue to be around.