And I though Ziggy was bad. Today Memrise died.
I’ll unsubscribe. I’m really sad, though. I use Memrise since 2015, pay since 2016. I’m rather sure that there wont be any Greek, Ancient Greek or Latin courses in the Memrise App from the Ides of March (how fitting).
Absolutely floored by this decision. No app? I have no confidence in a “mobile-friendly” website working as it should and I have never once used memrise on a pc to learn. Every single one of my courses is community-created and I have zero confidence my course progress is going to carry over smoothly. I’m actually anticipating it will all be lost.
I haven’t come across any other language-learning app that suits my needs as memrise had, so it looks like I’m going to have to jump ship with nowhere to land on my feet. What wonderful news.
Hey, what a shitstorm you brought in here, just take a look… 
Are you sure there is no other way around, but only to create this language ghetto for all the freaks and leave them without what they really need? Like, I don’t know, to listen carefully to them freaks and spoil them with some useful learning features in the app and then gradually raise your fee to sustain a business model? Though surely it will look as an extortion right now.
Because for the moment it seems like many folks (and me too) are very disappointed with your move and going to leave your site completely causing some major losses in the meantime.
Ah Leave him alone, this is a great opportunity for another developer to come along and give people what they want, in a few years memrise will just be another forgotten website like myspace,altavista,Digg,etc… And a new better improved site from someone else will take over. (of course it sucks in the meantime while there is a void)
Saw the e-mail on my phone. Immedately head to forums (never post usually) and see exactly what I expect.
Now, rather than just echo everyone, even though I 100% agree, lets consider some things.
Guarentee that is is the mentaltity of at least some of the Memrise staff/execs. I seldom see businesses actually listen to their user base. The ones that do don’t make these kind of bad decicions in the first place and so don’t end up in the position where they need to listen to the desperate outcry of their userbase. It’s probably all too late.
There’s not much point asking the poor guy for the strategic basis of the decicion. He probably has an initative to only answer questions about the transition to decks and how decks will work.
There is rarely such a thing. I work in the technology industry and I think we all know as well that even some of the biggest and best tech companies struggle to make a ‘mobile friendly’ website thrive. The technology meta has been about easy to use ‘apps’ for a long time now, cmon’, we’re not stupid. Memrise just have no interest in developing one. For what reason I do not know.
If it’s the former, good luck with that. Serious Anki users are usually the technical type and will expect some serious stuff and are not likely to move across. If its just a waste bin because you want to purge, that makes sense. Sadly.
I don’t understand who you are competing with. We know there are the likes of DuoLingo but frankly you need a unique selling point and there is no logical reason I can think of that you should get rid of community driven courses. It only serves to better the learners experience. I can only imagine its legal issues or some other technical incompitency on your part that has led to this move. Either way you shoudl work on a solution, rather than just dishonour your users and devalue the experience they came for in the first place.
Companies who want to thrive usually follow in the footsteps of Apple, Dyson, South West Airlines: the user experience and custoemr service is above all. You’re simply demonstrating the opposite and its painful.
I am so sorry to be so negative to the Memrise staff. I really love this app. As others have also said, I have a pro subscription to support the app and I don’t mind paying it whilst it fits my needs. I would even be willing to pay a bit more in return for improvements and more offical content. However - your own courses are OK and I enjoy them, but by removing these extra features and courses, you are removing the value that most of us are looking for. Clearly. It’s also pretty awful that some people have paid for lifetime access and you are willing to do something so extreme with little to no research or customer relations.
I am sorry that you are recieving a flurry of savage comments, but the reality is your users are not stupid - we are the kind of people who learn things for a hobby, remember? We are precisely the kind of people who expect logic and rationale behind changes. You’ve not provided any.
Because of all of the above, I can only concldue that Memrise has a strategy that has nothing to do with the users needs, they probably want to do a massive rebrand, compete with someone, or just have some money troubles. They can’t be this naive to not realise they will lose ton’s of subscriptions, so I can only think that they simply don’t care.
I welcome any feedback from Memrise themselves. Thank you for the service you have delivered in previous years, either way.
They are trying to play Jobs? Like in “we know what you need and we will force it on you”?
I have a Memrise Pro and you know why? User created courses. Do you realize that if you do this I won’t renew my membership?? There won’t be a reason. People might say: no need to pay anymore yey!. Or: this stupid guy telling them this when he can have it all he needs for free. But I’m telling you this because if you do this many people, including me, won’t have Memrise Pro anymore and then, eventually, you won’t have enough economical resources to maintain two apps or websites, whatever they are. And in the end you will try to reverse things and try to convince people to comeback, if they do ok. If they don’t… Memrise will disappear and I will really miss it because it’s ok the way it is. Not perfect, but still the best place to memorize on the web. Sadly it won’t be anymore.
I fear next thing will be advertisements in Decks. That will be the the time to leave. I’m using memrise at a vocational school to teach my students medicine, having added about 500 new users and 20 courses. I can not use it any more if there is any commercial content.
I’m sad and frustrated!
I believe that they were rather savage with their users, don’t they? If at least they wrote something like “we know that many of you care for community courses and if you don’t like our decision, please contact us for the subscription refund” - then all be a liitle less stormy here?
But instead we got a somewhat polished “get lost” message in our mails.
I’m afraid decks will be rampant with ads too. It’s literally making no money otherwise. No company makes an entire website for free " for the community".
Companies who want to thrive usually follow in the footsteps of Apple
They are trying to play Jobs? Like in “we know what you need and we will force it on you”?
Perhaps. But there have only been a few people on this earth to manage that. Also, whilst I admire Job’s for his passion (and many should) it’s not a one man thing. He himself wasn’t really a people person, but he knew the way to ‘change the world’ (as he always put it) was to drive the user experience and make people believe in ‘why’ Apple do what they do: to challenge the status quo - they just happen to make computers. So there were plenty underneath Jobs that understood people, and needs, and listend to the users and researched what they wanted and delivered. Jobs was able to ‘force’ things because he had a knack for knowing what people wanted without them knowing it themselves. If Memrise really think they are capaple of that then fair enough… but this is a little more nuanced because we all have very specific needs that can easily be measured.
For anyone who realises I am indeed quoting Simon Sinek, a business consultant and speaker. And the reason I am doing that is because it contrasts so well: Memrise are just doing the total opposite here.
I am sorry that you are recieving a flurry of savage comments
I believe that they were rather savage with their users, don’t they? If at least they wrote something like “we know that many of you care for community courses and if you don’t like our decision, please contact us for the subscription refund” - then all be a liitle less stormy here?
But instead we got a somewhat polished “get lost” message in our mails.
Indeed. I agree fully. I am just trying to remain polite despite how frustrating this is for us all.
Yes, I too loved Job’s Apple way and his decisions, however strange they were at first sight.
imho:
=
I went from knowing nothing to C1 level in Swedish in a year thanks to community created courses alone. When downloading a course suddenly became a paid feature my use of the app stopped and I only used the site, but my dedication dwindled. I was too poor, ha! Recently I was getting into it again and have been considering getting a premium subscription because I love this site. (No longer poor! Ha!) Though I have a knack for languages, whenever anyone asks me how I can learn so quickly I always recommend them Memrise.
But now there’s no point to it. No one really likes DuoLingo but now this will be a copy of it. Because of money. Money destroying a beautiful community.
No staff will read this or the other 200+ similar messages but I had to put this out there. I am really sad
: (
Everyone won’t be able to use them. Users have paid for pro membership for good reason, which will become worthless by this move for those learning languages without official Memrise courses, or where Memrise official courses aren’t providing the level of language learning and complexity the user requires.
Being able to download is a big attraction of the subscription, especially for those who may become out of range of WiFi or a good data connection. This includes many people in various countries and locations. I’m surprised that this hasn’t occurred to you considering when your head office is situated. Go on to the London Underground or commute in and out of London and Decks will be inoperable.
In addition, some less globally popular languages, like Welsh, Greek, Irish, etc. will be sidelined for this move. Even Duolingo is making more of an effort in this area to support minority languages in collaboration with their community.
If you want users to differentiate between your own courses and the community led ones, this could be easily done through the existing set up with course badges and filtering.
Hello,
I will delete my account if you’re not going to launch a mobile app for the decks.
I learn new languages during my trips when I’m at the park etc. So why should I carry my notebook everywhere?
So pity that I will lose one of the best mobile apps forever.
No constant internet connection -> less ads -> the company is not interested with the “free model”.
I am wondering how long it will take anyone in Memrise to really admit they are making a big mistake … will you at least commicate to us? I am a paying customer and as everyone here I pay only for community courses and them being offline. So will you stop being silent and finally give us more then just it will be the same when we know it wont?
