Near my house, there are two hairdressing salons. They look very similar, with the same minimalist white and silver decor, fluorescent bottles of hair product in the window, skinny and stylish female hair artists waiting to do your bidding.

The difference, though, is that one salon is often full, with customers content to wait in line. The other one is almost always empty. The empty one only opened a month or two after I arrived in Cambridge in September.

Whenever I walk by the new salon, I feel sorry for it. They don’t seem to have done anything wrong (after all, they are copying a successful recipe). Will it survive? Will it fail? I will monitor the situation and let you know.