Sy Reene

I assume Strava has to have explored dumping the Free version and just offering a Light vs Full version? Defray some of the increased revenue they're seeking by eg. charging $20/year for the Light version, etc? Can't help but think the paying subscribers are subsidizing the Freeloaders

rsbob 

Shhhhhhhhhhh

pdlamb

As of April, thank you very much!

prj71

If Strava dumps the free version there are many other apps out there that will do the same thing as Strava. Garmin Connect is free and does pretty much all of the same stuff.

Strava makes enough money from their sponsored challenges.

CrimsonEclipse

"I can't believe it's Capitalism!!"
Posted on Twitter for iPhone

(*sips Starbucks*)

genejockey 

I find Strava useful, so I pay for it, because it's cheap and I am not poor. I subscribed when there was a feature I wanted and, IIRC, Strava stopped providing it for free. Rather than whining about that I could no longer get the result of someone else's effort without paying for it, I decided to pay for it. I wouldn't do my job for free, either.

Eric F 

For a lot of people, the social media aspect of Strava is a valuable feature. That's a much more difficult factor to transport from one platform to another.

How much is "enough", and how does someone calculate that?

phrantic09

For some (good) beer, that’s the only way you can get it.

I pay the annual strava rate, it’s worth it to me to keep the platform alive. I also buy 6 dozen eggs, 10 pounds of chicken and 6 pounds of ground turkey in a shot.

Koyote

I've often bought 1/4 of a cow, and once bought an entire side of beef....Which is much cheaper per pound and also offers other benefits.

PeteHski

Garmin Connect doesn't do performance comparisons or much of the social stuff. I find Strava a much better platform for ride logging, tracking friends and comparing performance.

msu2001la

Agree. If you ignore the social media aspect, Garmin connect is comparable to the free version of Strava in some respects, but it only works with Garmin devices and doesn't provide a stand-alone mobile app for activity tracking like Strava does.

Garmin Connect would be fine if you only want to sync and track your own data and don't care about sharing with others, and also don't care about any of the premium features that Strava offers, but it's not really a Strava replacement option.

Koyote

Yup. This. And Garmin Connect doesn't offer anything like Strava Segments. Some may pooh-pooh those -- but during the pandemic, when races were pretty much not happening, I started going after segments as a way to stay sharp.

Eric F 

I use Segments regularly to track my fitness progression. It's one of the most valuable parts of Strava for me.

Reynolds 531 

Has anyone else noticed that creating Strava Routes has gotten terrible?

On several different devices, while trying to create a route, the "cursor" jumps to a completely to different place. Often, when the route is finished, there are zig zags that were never intended to be there, and cut through time and space on nonexistent anything.

This is the main thing I use Strava for, and I will have to let my subscription lapse if I have to start using another platform.

mschwett 

i find they’re way more useful than comparing overall rides. too many variables there, including traffic, road conditions, effort level, differential effects of wind etc.

for any of my favorite 10-20 segments, i’ll generally know what the constraints were. if it was potentially an all out effort with neutral or advantageous winds, then comparing it to other top efforts is really useful. no way to do that for a whole ride.

msu2001la

Same. Segments are great for this and I like how Strava makes it easy to see performance over time on them. I also find the "matched rides" feature to be similarly useful, where it compares total rides. This seems especially useful on Zwift, where I'm more likely to ride the exact same route over and over.

Eric F 

Yep.

Yep, again.

Don't tell Strava this, but if they doubled the annual subscription rate, I would still pay for it.

PeteHski

Yep, I use these features all the time and I'm not aware of any alternative software that does this.

genejockey 

I have used the "Matched Rides" feature to benchmark my bikes against each other. There's a ~25 mile route I ride after work (during DST). The difference, over 25 miles, between the fastest and slowest bikes was 0.9 mph average - about 4 minutes.

Eric F 

Interesting. With enough data to average out variables like traffic, weather, etc., you could get a pretty real picture of which bike is truly faster. Cool.

PeteHski

I take these features for granted but would miss them if they weren't there. So it would be disappointing if Strava disappeared and I don't begrudge them for making a profit. They found a good niche in the market and made it their own. I just hope they continue to develop the software. The data analysis side is still a bit lacking, but it has just about enough for me to ditch Training Peaks last year. I just wish the mobile app didn't smooth all the data graphs so heavily. They are almost useless as presented there, especially power.

genejockey 

The thing about this route is that there are no stop lights, and only about 9 stop signs and those rarely have cars stacked up. I was riding at the same time of day, after the winter rains ended but before the afternoon prevailing winds were very strong. Of course, the larger margins are more significant, but we're talking 4 minutes difference over an hour and 20 minutes. Interestingly, the two bikes that tied for second posted the same time down to the second. Those two - my only Italian bikes, the only ones with Campy, and both start with B - Bianchi and Battaglin.
Here's the slowest ride.

rsbob 

I use some of the social aspects as well by joining challenges with my local neighbors (climbing and distance for the year) as well as beer get-togethers. Yesterday I pinged a guy I have never met about a way to connect two routes and got a response today.

Made my day yesterday getting PR on a segment I wasn’t really trying to beat by 30 seconds as well as a 6th overall fastest on a new climb i was just exploring. Now i have to go back and try for the KOM. (It’s very little known and luckily no retired racers know about it). Am trying to also bag as many fastest times for my age group just for fun. Little carrots like this keep me intrigued and using the app.

Troul 

prj71

I get what you are saying...kinda like a facebook for athletes....but not sure why I need "kudos" after every ride. I use it to keep track of annual mileage and the mileage on each bike I own. Every once in a while, if I'm feeling energetic and in the mood, I will use it to chase a segment for a KOM.

Looking at this...they make money plenty of other ways. No need for me to pay a subscription for features I'll never use.


https://medium.com/bestcompany/how-s...e-92ae7bfdc633

https://productmint.com/strava-busin...va-make-money/

https://entrepreneur-360.com/how-doe...ke-money-35612