@hannepande
I’d like to bring the following story: Once upon a time, in a magical land far, far away, there was a sandwich shoppe providing all its sandwiches without mayo, mustard nor other similar dressing. Many a villager grumbled about this lack of dressing, since they liked their sandwiches with all kinds of different dressings: ranch, mayo, mustard, 3 peppers and others. The village council members went to the sandwich shoppe owners and told them: “Ho! Many of our fellow villagers would really like to have dressings.” The sandwich shoppe owners went back to their shoppe. The villagers were hopeful, confident that they had been heard. But a week passed by and still no dressing was available in the sandwiches. Disheartened at the lack of response from the Sandwich Shoppe Owners, the villagers brought their own favorite dressings and supplemented the sandwiches in whichever way they liked them best.
Now, the Sandwich Shoppe Owners did not care much about dressings, that was the truth. Talking among themselves, that night, eating their perfect dressing-less sandwiches, they said: “Blasted be these ignorant villagers, with their impertinent dressings requests. We ignored them and thought it would be the end of it. But No! They went around our backs to add some dressing of their own.”
So they added some Powder Spice of Vanish-Dressings, as it allowed their Sandwiches to remain fresh longer and regain their original, dressing-less flavours.
And so the villagers lamented. They went to their village council and expressed their discontentment: “Oh, wise council, what are we to do?”
The Council debated a fortnight, and hence came the decision: “We should invite other sandwich shoppes into our village, as it is such a popular dish.”
The reality is that some villagers want to have sandwiches with timer options. Errr. With dressings. And the sandwich shoppe owners should start listening to the requests made to them, especially by the community programmers - errr… village council leaders. They are knowledgeable and wise.
If Memrise really wants to encourage competition by driving some of their most committed community members and leaders away, they can. But it isn’t sound business.
So tells the tale of the Deaf Sandwich Shoppe Owners.
If Subway offered 1 kind of bread, 2 kinds of meat, all veggies and no dressing? They would have the right to do so. They would be able to do so. But they’d be overtaken by competition within months.
Memrise’s incredible luck is that there aren’t that many competitors around. But that may not last.