Strava Changes
 

I was just reading their email and was surprised to find out that they as a company have yet to make money.
Anyway, I was wondering how many of you pay for their subscription and why... also if any of you plan to pay for it now at $5 a month.

Not me. They seem to be horribly managed; maybe someone else can emerge to do it better.

I don't pay for Strava. I'm not a segment hunter, so the only thing I lose is not seeing who I follow on leaderboards. Strava is the de facto social network for cycling (but good luck making people pay for that), but for everything else I use other free platforms like RideWithGPS, Garmin Connect, TrainingPeaks, and Golden Cheetah. If they did other stuff better enough for me to consolidate, I might think of paying.

I'm not paying. If they can't make money selling the contacts info and browsing habits from my phone, they don't deserve to stay in business :roflmao2: As far as I'm concerned, a ten dollar Casio watch wrapped around some pipe insulation and the bars is all the tech I HAVE to have. Besides, the older and slower I get, the less information I want to know :D

I am lazy so I just paid for a year's subscription. I like their layout and ease with which you can compare segments over time and quickly see other things. I did use Trainingpeaks but found the free version just cluttered and kinda meh. I intend to use Golden Cheetah alongside and in a year decide if I want to continue the subscription.

did not receive an email from them. So we will have to start paying 5 dollars a month to use?

apparently i missed the memo. so segments are no longer available to those who use the free version?

Good summary and commentary on changes at DC Rainmaker.

TL;DR: non-subscribers can only see their ranking and top 10 on leaderboard. Can no longer see full list or compare your PR to those of people you follow. Seems like you still get notified if you get a PR or KOM.

Five, maybe even six or seven years ago I was regularly using Strava, RWGPS, and MapMyRide all at the same time. With the free accounts, one always had a function or two the others didn't allow for free. Don't know how that holds today.

At the time, MapMyRide was actually my favorite. However in the end, RWGPS won out to get my subscription money and I don't regret it at all. The few times I've had to email RWGPS's support a question, someone got back to me the same day. Even within the hour I think.

I enjoy the app/site and like its features for the most part. I’ve been a paying member for quite a while. I think a subscription is worth the price of admission, but I can see why it would be a turnoff to others. The web gives people so much stuff for free, it’s a challenge to get people to pay for anything. Strava has created a lot of value and is one of the few social media platforms I think adds value.

I pay for it; 'bout the same price annually as a pair of tires. I like the reporting and presentation; like ability to compare myself to myself. I also use the gear/parts tracking of miles, though I wish they'd add some ability to retire components and be able to reinstate them (eg. swapping tires or wheelsets back n'forth, etc). I don't use it for social anything really.

I'd be a paying member if I lived someplace with year round cycling. If I can no longer see segments unless I get a top 10, not sure I'll use it at all anymore.

I run AdGuard on my phone...Strava runs a significant number of trackers in the background. I am surprised they aren't making money with that information.

This is 3x what CalTopo costs, and CalTopo provides value.

Doesn't affect me because I've never used Strava, but I think to most people Strava is the leaderboard. All of their functionally only works with a massive user base, and it seems like they're going to lose people over this. Doesn't seem like a good idea at all.

They were trying to sell their activity data to infrastructure planners.

Agreed

I recently renewed my subscription, but the way this has gone down rubs me the wrong way.

I do check out segment times, but I'm mostly interested in performance metrics. I know that there are other platforms out there that would be better suited, but I'm not that hardcore and, as previously noted, Strava is the default cycling social network, so there's some value in keeping it under the same roof.

I am interested in the route building feature, too. I'll probably play with that and mull over renewing when the time comes in another 51 weeks.

Only the top 10 care about the leaderboard, right? That leaves lots of users unaccounted for that still use Strava anyway.

Strava is all about the "social aspect". Millions of users contributing their stats / competing on a leaderboard. Getting rid of that simply alienates the masses. Perhaps Strava no longer wants those users on their platform.

You might get that impression from discussions here, but I don't think that's the case in real life. There are a lot, a lot, a lot of really casual riders on Strava.

I don't pay. Nothing has changed for me.

Hmmm. I'm going to have to wait and see how this affects my Strava experience. For me, much of Strava is cycling social media - seeing what my cycling friends are doing, giving them encouragement, and receiving same. In the days of group riding, so long ago, I found Strava invaluable to figure out who the new people were. I also like the flybys.

And yeah, I pay attention to the segment leaderboards. I don't pore over them, If they partly hide them, but I can still see the top 10 and see my previous efforts, that might be OK.

Or I might fork over the $5/month. I do use it a fair bit, so I shouldn't be too miffed.

I think it's cool that Strava doesn't have ads like every other social media platform. Almost makes me want to subscribe, but it's not worth sixty bucks a year to give my friends kudos when they workout.

I can't imagine they are not. I don't know if I buy it. If its not making money somehow and they are still going after all these years then something is not quite adding up.

They have VC backing, and that backing is likely losing patience in the current market.

For wanting money, they're extremely slow to add new features, extremely slow to fix bugs, steal features from other companies, and are generally a pile of crap. I did like to compare myself to other riders I know, but they're not always in the top 10. In my experience, the top 10 is often full of cheaters (on the running side there are huge numbers of obvious bike rides by people who do it again as soon as you flag it) so that's not much of a draw.

It will be interesting to see how Strava's perception of its value intersects with reality.