No more Strava KOMs...
 

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[Closed] No more Strava KOMs (unless you pay)

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Strava is becoming less useful. I only use it to sync different software systems with my ride details anyway but doesn’t seem a wise move.

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2020/05/strava-cuts-off-leaderboard-for-free-users-reduces-3rd-party-apps-for-all-and-more.html


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 6:51 pm
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That's a bugger. I only really use it to compare my times by segment for frequently used rides/runs.


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 6:58 pm
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Oh well .

Bye Strava. Garmin connects been my main recording area for a while as it does the recording thing better and the stats /graphs much more useful. Only thing Strava was good for was the social aspect


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 6:58 pm
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“ And here’s the worse part: They aren’t necessarily wrong on that specific issue. In a conference call last week, Strava was point-blank clear that if they don’t get more subscribers and become profitable, there’s a pretty good chance there won’t be a Strava in a year.”


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 7:03 pm
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To be fair their paid for app offers me nothing I'm willing to pay for.

The leader boards literally mean nothing

Zwift offers something tangible that interests me for my 155 quid a year.

Strava bringa nice to haves but nothing of value for me anyway .


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 7:06 pm
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I've paid for it for years, it's brilliant, miles better than Garmin connect.

I reckon giving too much functionality to the free version was probably a mistake, in hindsight.


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 7:09 pm
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Only thing Strava was good for was the social aspect

The free version will still do this, and will act as a basic ride logging tool.

I've been wanting to sub to Strava for a while and kept getting the free trial offer, but only with the billed annually option, there's now a free 60 day trial with a monthly billed option.

I use the route planner a fair bit, and it could do with some improvement (which it's now getting).

The key thing is:

In a conference call last week, Strava was point-blank clear that if they don’t get more subscribers and become profitable, there’s a pretty good chance there won’t be a Strava in a year.

I record my runs/rides on garmin and wahoo devices/software but everything pulls into strava as my main riding/running log, so I'm happy to sub. Others may not, but I also think a lot of the free users probably don't care about the segments, or route mapping etc.


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 7:09 pm
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If I read it right, KOMs are still there, just not more than the top 10 and drops follower leader board.

I don't care about any of that anyway and just compare my segment times but only of vague interest.

I'd be happy with segments even being purely a paid thing. Less sensitive trails wrecked by hordes 😏. Cutting off third party apps might also mean Strava segments not showing up in Trailforks, so also a good thing. Trails actually added to Trailforks can be managed. Strava segments are not.

Anything to cut down on Strava****ers is good 😜


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 7:13 pm
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I’d pay for it. The route planner is useful and simple to use.


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 7:18 pm
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I’m a subscriber, I find it fairly useful to be honest. I zwift, Sufferfest and ride outdoors. It’s a handy comparative tool.
I also find the mapping software pretty useful. I look at other riders on segments I’ve done to look at different routes, then I can link those into a new ride for me.
Hoping they get enough new subscribers to let them keep going. I get it isn’t for everyone, but I’m a fan.


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 7:19 pm
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Top ten leader board is good enough for me, I just like to compare myself to Danny Hart 🙂


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 7:19 pm
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Hang on, I think your click-bait headline is wrong. As far as I can see you can still get KOMs, you just won't be able to see any of the leaderboards other than the top 10 of the 'all time' one.

Non-paying users will no longer see the full leaderboard: They’ll only see the top 10 times (all + Top 10 women), you won’t see your friends anymore, nor clubs or weight/age groups

You can see why they need to do it, but it seems a little harsh to just turn such big changes overnight without any forewarning.


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 7:20 pm
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Don’t see the problem, it’s a great tool for negligible cost. Right now it has millions of users and makes zero profit, so what else can it do?
If the feed is full of advertising people will moan.
If they charge a fee, people will moan.
If they go bust and take everyone’s data with them, people will moan.


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 7:20 pm
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£6.99 is quite a bit but you do get a fair amount of functionality for that. It is a poor move for clubs though where they use the data for comparison etc.


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 7:26 pm
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Will I still be able to see when I set a PB? I don't really care if someone else is quicker down/up something so knowing I'm 1257 out of 8643 is irrelevant.


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 7:42 pm
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Just drop advertising onto non-subscriber accounts, after all, it works here! 😉

As I work for a small IT company that requires subscriptions to pay my salary (and mortgage) I can understand why they need to do this but the manner in which they've done it confuses me. Seems like there's gonna be a lot of activity for the 44,000 downstream app providers to figure out what to do next.

I just discovered the doogal.co.uk site yesterday and was browsing around and discovered some intriguing trails to explore. Hopefully this change doesn't break it
(BTW: I'm a Strava subscriber and I have been for many years. So I hope there are no repercussions because if the user base drops substantially, it loses it's usefulness and I'll cancel my subscription)


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 7:45 pm
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Frankly segments and also challenges for comparison with others are useless in many cases anyway until they acknowledge the existence of mountain bikes as an activity with their own segments and challenges. This has been on the much requested list for a very long time and ignored all along. Ebikes yes, MTBs, no.


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 7:47 pm
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Nobeerinthefridge
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I reckon giving too much functionality to the free version was probably a mistake, in hindsight.

Aye, also the paid-for additions were quite expensive and not all that universally useful. I'd always have been happy to pay a small sub or even a donation for basic strava but I definitely wasn't paying the full rate for the full fat version.


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 7:50 pm
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I think, for non-subcribers, removing the ability to compare your times against your ride buddies will be the biggest negative.
Personally, I'm not sure of the route builder...I tried it once and the "random" route generator provided some hilariously bad suggestions (like suicidal!) and there are plenty of other options around such as RWGPS & Komoot.


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 7:54 pm
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Sounds like they are dropping the subscription cost anyway to £4 per month for everything which seems reasonable.
I only use the free version but might subscribe now- primarily for the route planning. I tend to look at everything in trainerroad for the analysis however.


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 7:58 pm
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Happy to pay an appropriate amount for the limited amount I use it for, I probably ought to find out if there's more stuff I could usefully use.

More valuable to our club, it's where club rides and routes are arranged


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 7:59 pm
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Sounds like they are dropping the subscription cost anyway to £4 per month for everything which seems reasonable.

It's £4/month if you pay up front for a year or £6.99/month for a rolling subscription.


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 8:02 pm
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No changes to VeloViewer apparently. That'll suit me.


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 8:04 pm
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So can I still see any KOM's and PR's then?

To be very specific, here’s what non-paying users will see going forward:

Free users:
• Top 10 all-time and top 10 women Results in Leaderboard
• New Segment Creation is allowed
• Segment Detail screen is allowed (just not leaderboard details)
• Segment Explore / Search is allowed
• Flagging Segments is allowed
• Activity achievements is shown on a ride (KOM’s, CR’s, PR’s)

Paying Subscribers only:
• All segment leaderboards (including following/clubs/this year/age groups/weight classes)
• Analyze segment efforts
• Compare your results
• Analyze your efforts


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 8:05 pm
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Can't see the issue. There are so many people who want everything for free but at some point someone has to pay for it. I pay for Strava and Veloviewer so that I can look at my heart rate zones (you need to pay Strava so that they'll send the HR data to Veloviewer) and use them to explore new areas, the cost is minimal when you think about what I get out of it.

£4 a month is less than I spend on crap most shopping trips!


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 8:12 pm
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Like I said above, I'm only really bothered about comparing my own segments against myself so I can see if I'm progressing or not. Won't be paying for it as I seem to have signed up to plenty of cheeky £5-10 pm subscriptions recently.


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 8:22 pm
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Bit of a bugger as I regularly use the route planner and do like to compare my times to people who I follow. Never seen the point of the paid for membership though so remained free. Now I guess I'll have no choice but to lose out on those few things I use or cough up. I don't fancy another monthly bill along with zwift and apple music on top of a single person mortgage and other bills etc. Will have to weigh it up and decide.


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 8:25 pm
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I already pay annually so I wouldn’t appear to be losing anything. But I do like to compare my times to those I follow and if the people I follow stop using Strava because of this it’s value to me drops


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 8:35 pm
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When are these changes taking affect?


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 8:54 pm
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Starting today.

https://www.strava.com/clubs/581470/posts/9685957

We love cheering you on, keeping the record of your achievements and connecting you with your community. To make sure we can keep doing that for many years to come, we’ve made some overdue changes.

Here’s more from our founders about how we’re making your motivation our focus.

Dear Strava community,

If nothing else, 2020 has been a year of regaining perspective. A silver lining of hard times like these is that they inspire introspection and focus – What matters the most to us? And how do we live up to that?

Our answers to those questions have only gotten clearer in the past few months, and we’re now leading the company with a single purpose: rededicating Strava to our community. We’re obsessing over our athletes – over you – and no one else.

Strava athletes deserve an affordable and constantly improving experience, and we hope you’ve noticed how focused we’ve been this year on delivering that. Our small but mighty team of 180 has released 51 athlete-facing improvements already in 2020, from Apple Watch syncing to new maps and metrics for snowsports, to a huge update to our Routes features, and a lot more. We’ve also removed some distractions, such as Sponsored Integrations (the closest we’ve ever come to putting ads in the feed). And we returned the option to sort your feed in chronological order. We heard how much that change drove you nuts, and admit it took a really long time to respond.

Dedicating Strava to the community is also a commitment to longevity. We are not yet a profitable company and need to become one in order to serve you better. And we have to go about it the right way – honest, transparent and respectful to our athletes. Our plan puts subscription at the centre of Strava.

This means that starting today, a few of our free features that are especially complex and expensive to maintain, like segment leaderboards, will become subscription features. And from now on, more of our new feature development will be for subscribers – we’ll invest the most in the athletes who have invested in us. We’ve also made subscription more straightforward by removing packs and the brand of Summit. You can now use Strava for free or subscribe, simple.

This focus on subscription ensures that Strava can serve athletes decades from now, and in an up-front way that honours the support of the athletes we serve today. We plan to take what we earn from these changes and reinvest straight back into building more and better features – not devising ways to fill up your feed with ads or sell your personal information. We simply want to make a product so good that you’re happy to pay for it.

Our mission is to connect athletes to what motivates them and help them find their personal best. We mean it now more than ever.

We think that £4 a month for Strava is money well spent. But we also know, especially lately, that there are athletes struggling to make ends meet and that the free version of Strava must remain high quality and useful. Rest assured that we will always offer a version of Strava for free, and you belong in this community whether you subscribe or not. We’re betting all our chips on you, either way. We hope you’ll bet on us.

We are beyond grateful for your business and your support, and thrilled to recommit ourselves entirely to you, our fellow athletes.

See you out there,
Mark and Michael

https://www.strava.com/subscription/whats-new?btn=1VYMwWeYrcyESMWsdA7qaV&par=1j04LtpJLsMmFYcuYm5dIt

We’ve made improvements thanks to your feedback (with lots more planned this year!), and moved a few free features into the subscription to ensure Strava is around for years to come. Here’s the latest:
New features for subscribers

A big Routes update, with planning & recommendations on iOS and Android

Matched Rides: Analyze performance on identical rides over time

See your full workout history with Training Log on iOS

Workout Analysis is now available for all activity types

Grade-Adjusted Pace (GAP) now on iOS and Android

Coming soon: A whole new way to compete on segments…

New subscription features that were previously free

Overall segment leaderboards (Top 10 view is still free)

Comparing, filtering and analyzing segment efforts

Route planning on strava.com, with a huge redesign launching soon!

Matched Runs: Analyze performance on identical runs over time

Training Log on Android and strava.com

Monthly activity trends and comparisons

Recent releases for all athletes

“Favorites first” feed settings and the return of the chronological feed

Improved impossible effort detection… False KOMs, QOMs, CRs dethroned!

Apple Watch uploading and improved sync to Apple Health

Recorded the drive home by accident? New mobile activity cropping

All activities now show both elapsed and moving time

New or improved analysis of power, cadence and swimming stroke rate

Subscribing got simpler and easier

Lots of new features for subscribers, but prices stay the same! We’ve also simplified our offering to make subscribing easier to understand – we’ve said goodbye to the brand of Summit and splitting subscriptions into Packs. Now you just use Strava for free, or subscribe to Strava for the best of everything we do.


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 8:57 pm
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I can still create routes.


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 9:03 pm
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Some years ago there was even more functionality in the free version - you could see power data of other riders for example. I always thought that the extras of "Summit" or whatever they are calling the premium version this year weren't worth it for the casual user. Then the power and HR data moved to Premium.

I only really use Strava as a data aggregator since other sites provide better functionality but off the back of Strava's API. Veloviewer (£10/year) is much better for dissecting and visualising your rides and intervals.icu (free) is better for data analysis.

(you need to pay Strava so that they’ll send the HR data to Veloviewer)

Not sure that's true - my HR and power data gets sent to intervals.icu from the free version, I'd imagine that's also the case for Veloviewer.

Age related leaderboards have been premium since the early days. Segment analysis would have to be vastly improved to be genuinely useful.

Anyway, typical Strava UI - when I load the site there's an announcement of a message from the company's founders but I was checking the power/HR values of someone I follow and when I return the announcement has disappeared! So unless you respond immediately to something you never know what it was.


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 9:05 pm
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I’d always have been happy to pay a small sub or even a donation for basic strava but I definitely wasn’t paying the full rate for the full fat version.

This more or less sums it up for me.


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 9:09 pm
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There's a psychological aspect. If it were £3/mo I wouldn't think twice about subscribing, but at £6 it's a bit more of an annoyance even though I can afford it.

I use the route planning feature a lot as it's the best place I know where you can use the heat map whilst planning routes and I can automatically transfer them to my device.


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 9:12 pm
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I pay £2.49 a month.


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 9:20 pm
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There’s a psychological aspect. If it were £3/mo I wouldn’t think twice about subscribing, but at £6 it’s a bit more of an annoyance even though I can afford it.

I use the route planning feature a lot as it’s the best place I know where you can use the heat map whilst planning routes and I can automatically transfer them to my device.

This sounds very familiar to another website and forum. Would more folk subscribe if the price was less - especially if folk don't want all of the features that a more expensive subscription offers anyway?


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 9:24 pm
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I can understand why they are doing it, always seemed a lot for free. As a family we use it to share rides / routes / climbing / mileage / photos with friends. Segments / KoMs / QoMs are nice but will we pay near on £30/month to use them - no chance. If they remove the features we do use, still no chance. We shared virtually no rides during lockdown, and had to resort to talking to friends about them instead, which we found was nice!


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 9:31 pm
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You'll never know, cos what folk say they would pay for is often not what they would when it comes down to it.


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 9:34 pm
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amazing folks out with bikes costing thousands cry about a fiver a month on strava


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 9:54 pm
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I'd happily pay £4 per month for it, if that was the monthly cost rather than the annual cost.


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 9:56 pm
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amazing folks out with bikes costing thousands cry about a fiver a month on strava

It's not just a fiver for Strava, it's a fiver a month for bloody loads of things these days. And I spent all my money on bikes so there's none left obvs. Your logic is poor.


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 9:56 pm
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amazing folks out with bikes costing thousands cry about a fiver a month on strava

And then there's folk who spend money on things that they get value from.

A fake often windassisted race result is not value.


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 9:58 pm
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if you dont get value from it dont pay for it. lots of people will and do get value from it.

fat middle aged men come crying on stw


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 10:12 pm
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I've been a subscriber for a while, only really for the beacon function so my wife gets a txt and then can see when I've left the office or follow my progress on a ride. Have same function technically with Garmin but find the livetrack buggy and can only notify via email. Beacon seems to be pretty robust.

The fitness/freshness thing is OK too but I wouldn't pay for that alone.


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 10:25 pm
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Does it measure fun? No? Not interested, never have been.


 
Posted : 18/05/2020 10:38 pm
 nuke
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Given the social aspect of Strava, it needs a certain critical mass of riders to keep it going, if half your friends/followers don't sign up there's less point so why bother?

I see the commercial reason for doing it but converting casual users to subscribers is a tall order and i think Strava needs that critical mass of people to keep it relevant.

We'll see...i like Strava, bit of fun post ride but its becoming less used by riders i know and this might just be the final nail for me to not bother too.


 
Posted : 19/05/2020 12:21 am
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Surprised to note they have 180 staff, from a software development perspective feels like they have half a dozen, with respect to the fairly glacial pace at which they add features, bug fix, and manage to ignore lots of long-term annoyances. They could probably get rid of 100 dead-weight hipster staff to massively improve their bottom line.


 
Posted : 19/05/2020 12:21 am
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A fake often windassisted race result is not value.

Guilteeeeeeeee 😀

Commuting all year has its benefits.


 
Posted : 19/05/2020 12:25 am
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Well I'm happy, this prompted me to go and check what I'm paying as my price rolled over from pre-summit packs approx 2 years ago.

Gone from £5.99 monthly to £3.79 a month annually as they've automatically honoured the previous annual price 🙂

I pay £10 a month each to Spotify and Amazon, and intermittently pay when I want to use advanced route planning on ride with GPS. £3.79 (or £4) is worth it for me for the motivation to go out for an extra ride every now and then, the other subs are worse value as they encourage me to sit on my backside!


 
Posted : 19/05/2020 5:58 am
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I'm not fully convinced about the 'no strava in a year bit'. It's unlikely that the venture capital investors behind them, (very serious ones too) would allow that to happen. More like a combination of:

  • CEO removed
  • App infested with creepy adtech spyware
  • Adverts in your face all over the place
  • Ill advised hardware lock in
  • Sold to someone awful, like Google or Facebook

You have a choice, buy the product, become the product (see above) or don't get get the product. There's nothing free on the internet.

And this was the plan all along, a social network doesnt work until there's enough people to cause said network effects, so keep it free to the user, and the experience uncluttered by adverts until the volume is there. And then start the ratchet. Strava was hoping that there would have been more 'organic' conversions from 'free' to paid by now, but thats not how it went, so the ratchet has gone up a few notches.


 
Posted : 19/05/2020 6:21 am
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Going to go out for a bike ride today - will see what it looks like on the app after.

I liked Strava for the following (in descending order of importance):
Comparing myself to myself on segments
Seeing my segment speed in general (am I top 10%, bottom 20% etc)
Counting up how many miles I have done in a year
Seeing what my pals are up to.

Though I do record everything through a Garmin and Garmin Connect, so I think a lot of that information will be in there.


 
Posted : 19/05/2020 6:43 am
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Couldn't agree more with this.

I use strava to compare myself to my previous efforts, the KOM for the places I ride (mostly trail centres) mean that the top 10 is totally irrelevant. Im hopeful a better, free or add boosted, app will come along to wipe strava out and step into its place.

Strava are clearly going for a big sale to one of the big boys, and want their balance sheets to reflect x quarters of increasing revenue. What they've done is create a scenario where the only people who use it will be the mega dedicated, not the casual, once a fortnight rider


 
Posted : 19/05/2020 6:59 am
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A fake often windassisted race result is not value.

The fake wind-assisted results keep me warm at night ☹

I'll probably pay, the route planner has provided me with years of useful distraction, and I enjoy the pointless and arbitrary chasing of segments, helps to mix things up when you're riding the same roads over and over (especially at the moment!).

If I can somehow visualise time spent in different heart rate zones then that will be especially useful when I eventually resume training in earnest.


 
Posted : 19/05/2020 7:08 am
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Interesting move.

Personally I dont think it’s about needing more money to survive, I think it’s probably that they feel they now have enough paid up members to keep the platform valid.

ie they have got a critical mass where enough are paying for data to mean something.

I have paid for the last 6 months or so, not sure what I really get of use from that, I occasionally look at my segments by age group Which makes me feel better, but I could just enter a race.

Fitness/Freshness just seams daft.

Will be interesting to see how many people leave. Back to Endomondo anyone?


 
Posted : 19/05/2020 7:23 am
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Will be interesting to see how many people leave.

I went the other way and signed up. I’ve used it for free for years, maybe about time I put my hand in my pocket. Bit like on here really.


 
Posted : 19/05/2020 7:30 am
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Does it measure fun? No? Not interested, never have been.

And yet, here you are.


 
Posted : 19/05/2020 7:40 am
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I don’t mind paying a subscription on principle, but £6.99 a month is waaay too much for something I look at for 5 minutes after each ride or run.

It’s a £1 a month service at most for the 20 minutes a week I spend on it.


 
Posted : 19/05/2020 7:55 am
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Personally I dont think it’s about needing more money to survive

Oh their burn rate* is well into the survival territory. They need to raise money every 12-18 months to keep the lights on. Strava has burnt ~$55M so far.

* https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/burnrate.asp


 
Posted : 19/05/2020 7:59 am
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Surprised to note they have 180 staff, from a software development perspective feels like they have half a dozen, with respect to the fairly glacial pace at which they add features, bug fix, and manage to ignore lots of long-term annoyances. They could probably get rid of 100 dead-weight hipster staff to massively improve their bottom line.

This was the reason I cancelled my paid subscription. I got fed up with bugs and annoyances never getting fixed despite loads of people reporting the same thing and just getting no fixes and answers.

I originally paid because I sort of thought it was the right thing to do after I'd been using it for a while.


 
Posted : 19/05/2020 8:07 am
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I was hoping that this round of upgrades and glitch fixes there would be something for mountain bikers to get their teeth into, but it does feel like we're tolerated like the ugly ginger cousin rather than part of the running/grim roadie family. I've been paying for quite some time, now, but blocking most of the services for non-paying members, while I can understand it, makes it less attractive to paying members if it's going to drive away the majority of the users. (who are still also contributors after all)

I get that they want to earn something from one of the most successful activity apps, but while they seem to have developed a half decent app, the strategy behind the business seems woeful really


 
Posted : 19/05/2020 8:17 am
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I'd imagine that there's far more runners than MTBers use Strava, and that they know their market.


 
Posted : 19/05/2020 8:23 am
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I signed up yesterday, been meaning to for ages after cancelling a couple of years back after a big accident.

I don't make any rides public so leader boards are irrelevant to me, but use Routes regularly and enjoying monitoring my own performance.

Cost of a pint a month for something I look at many times a day. Seems like decent value.


 
Posted : 19/05/2020 8:30 am
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There's an element of subscription fatigue though.

Strava for logging
Komoot for planning
Zwift for indorr riding
Sufferfest for training*
Veloviewer for some nice graphs
ST for reviews of stuff you can't afford and a working forum coming January 2005.*

Before you know it you're paying more in monthly subscriptions than a 0% finance deal on a new bike.

If STRAVA is going to work towards a model where everyone subscribes it needs to at least be the best at a few things so it can cannibalize subscriptions off others. It used to be that if you subscribed to STRAVA you got the Sufferfest training videos so you didn't need quite so many subscriptions. Feels like something needs to consolidate a bit, like they need to sell out / merge with someone else to offer something a bit more tangible.

Or Garmin should buy them, I imagine every time they move the paywall GPS sales take a hit, I'd probably drop the faff of charging/uploading my garmin if STRAVA ceased to be useful.

*actually the only ones I pay for.

amazing folks out with bikes costing thousands cry about a fiver a month on strava

My most ridden bikes the last 4 years have all cost less than an annual Zwift subscription.

We're not all...........


 
Posted : 19/05/2020 8:38 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

Strava used it's mostly free users to generate the content on which it survives: routes, segments, leaderboards, DATA etc. so perhaps they now consider they've harvested enough to feed on for a while. It does suggest that they gave away a bit too much for free initially though.

I do use it but mainly for the social aspect and basic tracking. Once my sub is up, I'll probably not renew it.


 
Posted : 19/05/2020 8:40 am
Posts: 1190
Free Member
 

I'm currently on a 2 month free trial of the paid for stuff and I'm struggling to see what it adds.

Strava is useful for pulling all the things I do into one place but the approach to anything other than biking and running is a bit cack. I tend to check against previous efforts and against friends but not much else. Very occasionally I will use segment explore if I go to new areas but it works so erratically that it's hard to rely on compared to trailforks.

On the whole the segments on MTB routes at anywhere ridden frequently have become pointless with every man and his dog setting up minor variations for every section depending on where they stop for chats.

I'm struggling to justify paying for a thing I use for minimal time with little benefit. No it's not a lot, but it's half a zwift sub and I'm using that 5+ hours/week at the moment, a Disney+ sub or multiples of an STW sub and I don't like to think how much time I spend here.

TLDR - Paying is ok but the monthly charge is way out on the usage it gets.


 
Posted : 19/05/2020 8:48 am
Posts: 28680
Full Member
 

TBH unless my segment is inside the top 10, then it doesn't matter... So top 10 is fine with me... I don't have many inside top 10 admittedly, but if i'm 345 or 860,000 on another segment, who cares.

Hopefully i'll be able to at least see how my segment times compare to my previous segments, but that's all i really need.

I'm not saying i won't pay for it, as i do feel i use it enough to justify the small payment... but i'm staying open minded at the moment.


 
Posted : 19/05/2020 8:53 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

I only really use Strava to log my rides - not really interested in the KOMs etc, so i feel £6.99 per moth is a bit much.
I only ride twice a week so we're heading toward £1 per ride which i don't think is good value to me.
I'll happily stick with the free version..


 
Posted : 19/05/2020 9:03 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

They have also removed the old ‘download GPX’ functionality, for non paid members.  I’m actually not worried about the KOM and leaderboard nonsense. I don’t tend to trouble much of it and it’s been ruined since ebikes became more prevalent.  But the GPX function was useful if you wanted to try a friends route or needed to find a new trail.  I am happy to pay for Strava too, but not at £6.99 a month! Couple of quid tops for me! If Strava disappears, then I don’t think it’s a bad thing really, something else will come along to replace it.


 
Posted : 19/05/2020 9:04 am
Posts: 1312
Full Member
 

I’ve paid £18.99 annually for a subscription option which has now gone, but the renewal in June is still at that price.

That’s about the right price for where I value it. I use it a lot, I should pay for it, but I don’t want another monthly subscription (far too many now).

If the number of non-paying subscribers is as big as it appears in my feed then I’d scrap the free tier entirely and have one that costs £10/year and one that costs £25 a year.

Don’t see why any user would expect to get it for free with no advertising/monetisation.


 
Posted : 19/05/2020 9:05 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

I only see this as affecting the slow mo jos if all they're concerned about is segments. I'm an unsociable rabbit so for me it's not the sociable aspect so much....it's more the stalking facility that appeals to me. FlyBys are still working so that suits me fine. I shall continue to stalk on for free.


 
Posted : 19/05/2020 9:07 am
Posts: 3642
Free Member
 

I think it is fair enough. The tool is pretty good, certainly the best at what it does and the difference between paid and free has always been too small.

I guess time will tell if people move to something else but I cant see it right now.


 
Posted : 19/05/2020 9:14 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

i like to nick other peoples rides and modify them, i also like plotting routes using the heatmap - can i do this for free? coz i might cancel..

i assume they have not bothered to modify the minimum segment length? so many short/steep descents near me that you cant segment...


 
Posted : 19/05/2020 9:53 am
Posts: 41642
Free Member
 

TBH unless my segment is inside the top 10, then it doesn’t matter… So top 10 is fine with me… I don’t have many inside top 10 admittedly, but if i’m 345 or 860,000 on another segment, who cares.

I actual find those more useful.

If I find myself i the top ten it's because it's an unpopular flat route and I'm the only one to have done it on a gravel bike!

What would be more 'useful' would be if they showed the big leaderboards as a bell curve so you could see where you were relative to the average.

e.g. am I 200'th out of 1000 because I'm slower than a good chunk of people, or the TdF pass through and the top 199 places are all the peleton several minutes up on the mortals.


 
Posted : 19/05/2020 10:06 am
Posts: 8527
Free Member
 

Mine is 3.99 a month, about the price of a beer, but much better for you. 🙂


 
Posted : 19/05/2020 10:14 am
Posts: 898
Full Member
 

I won't be paying to use Strava. It seems you'll still get a KOM and a place in the top ten if you're free user- if so that's fine as if I'm not in the top ten then I'm not interested anyway and obviously need to go away and train more or try harder. Not interested at all in the 'social' aspect of Strava, but it is a good tool as an advanced cycle computer, an incentiviser and a bit of fun. I'd rather find a free alternative than pay for it...recommendations?
what's this Komoot thing like?


 
Posted : 19/05/2020 10:15 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

Subs for everything now. £4 a month is a £48 bill year after year. Complete rip off. I've a great mapping app - £3 a year , now that's acceptable.


 
Posted : 19/05/2020 10:38 am
Posts: 0
Free Member
 

ET - yes I do the same ....lets hope "strava to GPX" keeps working!


 
Posted : 19/05/2020 10:40 am
Posts: 12072
Full Member
 

i assume they have not bothered to modify the minimum segment length? so many short/steep descents near me that you cant segment…

Hopefully they haven't changed that, and it'd be great if they could eliminate all the sections that are less than 500m long too - far too much GPS error to be of any value.

In fact they could clean up the whole segment bit, too many duplicates, short sections with junctions in the middle etc.


 
Posted : 19/05/2020 10:41 am
Posts: 6980
Full Member
 

Does anyone know the actual financials for Strava? Seem to be a lot of assumptions going around (not really here) but I can’t see anything that shows the actual state of the company


 
Posted : 19/05/2020 10:45 am
Posts: 6203
Full Member
 

Cheeky sods. I gave them all that information on where and when I ride my bike for free. Even let them aggregate the data and make money from selling it. Now they want me to pay for the privilege of giving them my data.

Well that's one way of looking at it I suppose.


 
Posted : 19/05/2020 10:52 am
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