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:
- No offline mode for Decks = no value for users
- Offline mode for Decks = no value for memrise
- No community courses in App = much less value for users
=
- Decks = dead born baby
- Memrise = due tu fail.
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?
The company isn’t interested in the free model anyway. But they at least know if they completely remove the user content the riot they will have on their hands won’t be salvageable at all, in comparison with what they think will happen now.
yeah i know - i meant more that “everything will be the same” answer …
he answered some random offtopic questions here. (Corrected the typo ;))
Kevn won’t provide any information outside what he has been briefed with. For anyone who works in the business industry you will know he has been likely given the short straw and tasked with ‘responding to decks queries’ with (probably) a select set of answers and are pre-approved.
We should appreciate his efforts however we are going to need Memrise to respond to us in proper with some kind of rationale if they want us to re-consider us keeping our paid subscrtipons and continuing to support and drive this product.
Okay, I try again. Do you know the alternatives to Memrise? Without Anki. Or is it the only platform?
