[Dicklexic]

Okay so it isn’t about to die, but this is surely going to put a lot of people off using it in the future. After all, for a lot of the Stravisti, seeing where you rank on a leaderboard is one of the main attractions/addictions!

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2020/05/strava-cuts-off-leaderboard-for-free-users-reduces-3rd-party-apps-for-all-and-more.html?fbclid=IwAR3xGst3BdUBB_C0_-UF9WpNw0b8bDC7VU4xAx617XCEA46p1eB5ibh6qTg

Topic

[Dao]

I dislike how terribly strava

I dislike how terribly strava seems to record my gps as well, so In all honesty, I am probably going to work myself back to komoot which is less about the racing and more about the enjoyment of the ride.

[Dao]

I’m mostly annoyed by the

I’m mostly annoyed by the changes to other parts of Strava rather than the segments, like routes etc. and since Strava have decided my data isn’t profitable enough for them, my rides will only be in the “everyone” setting for as long as it takes to lock in a new trophy then its back to private/follower mode which withholds it from their money-making metro and heatmaps.

[crazy-legs]

Reality is that segments are,

Reality is that segments are, for most people, pretty worthless. The vast majority of people won’t be troubling the top spots that much and they got devalued as soon as they started being duplicated.

Hill, bottom to top. Fair enough. But then a rider comes along and isn’t KOM so he sets up “Hill, bottom to third lamppost” just so he can claim a KOM. Next thing there are a dozen, increasingly ridiculous, segments all over the same hill . Three laps of Richmond Park and have a look at the 18,000 segments you’ve done. 

It’s good for routes and for tracking what you’ve done though, I like it for that.

[cyclefaster]

The main thing that annoys me

The main thing that annoys me is the lack of respect for the user base. Even those that are not using the subscription service, it is far from being free to use. In exchange for using strava, they are sharing their data, location privacy which is then monetized and used to enhance their product. 

I do currently pay for strava and have been an on and off subscriber for a few years. Each time I have signed up I am always a little disappointed as you really need to have all the gear (power meters, HR monitors etc) to get the most out of it. I’m not sure if I will renew

Segments are what’s important to me, I have the same commute I do when I cycle to work, and some of the stock routes that I ride a lot and I always look for some of my favourite segments when I get home to see how I compared. 

I can’t see this having the effect of encouraging people to sign up. I don’t have many “friends” on strava, and about a third pay for it. I’m not sure whether the rest would use it if they had to pay, which is a shame.

[IanEdward]

I’ll probably cough up, I’ve

I’ll probably cough up, I’ve always felt like I should anyway due to the value I find in their route planner, seems so much better than alternatives that I’ve used.

I briefly toyed with Trainingpeaks and really liked the ‘hours spent in zone’ feature when I was training with heartrate (too cheap for a power meter). Hopefully Strava has something similar.

I could possibly also save the £10/year I spend on Veloviewer if Strava offers heatmaps (I believe it does?) and details of weekly mileage/hours etc.

Will need to investigate, won’t be putting me off anyway.

[Joe Totale]

Finally, a reason to pay for

Finally, a reason to pay for Strava

[Anonymous]

One of the aims of a ‘free’

One of the aims of a ‘free’ package is as a carrot to paying more for a premium service. If the free package isn’t worth using then why pay for premium? This is what DC Rainmaker is getting at – the carrot has been replaced by a stick.

Having said this, I would happily pay for Strava if it had a decent search engine/database. Currently it is woeful – for years this has been documented on their community boards – but not a single attempt to improve it in the last twelve years. Strava, give me the ability to search for a ride/activity easily using various factors and I’m a willing paying customer. Until then…

[hawkinspeter]

I think they’re shooting

I think they’re shooting themselves in the foot. Temporarily, some people will cough up the cash if they’re interested in chasing down the KOM/QOMs but the fastest people are only going to be a tiny percentage of their total users.

I think they charge too much for the service and this move is surely opening the door to competitors. The difficulty for competitors is getting people to move their data from Strava to a different platform – shouldn’t be too difficult.

Personally, I don’t care enough about segments to fork out cold, hard cash, but it is fun sometimes to compare my speed with the approx 10 people I follow/am followed by.

[Drinfinity]

My initial reaction was ‘how

My initial reaction was ‘how dare they take away my free access to all my legacy ride comparison data, and my leaderboard positions’ . Then I gave myself a stern talking to and decided to pay up, especially now they have simplified the model so you get all the features for one rate.

 

It’s either that or vastly more advertising.

[TheBillder]

I think they’ve at last
I think they’ve at last realised that the “wow, look at my new PR, faster than Jimmy on my Sunday club run” has the most value overall, and the network effect (gotta be on F book if all my friends are) may have hit a point of no return.

But in bundling that simple stuff (yeah, needs data centers / cloud capacity but the programming isn’t all that complex compared with other things they do) with all the analysis of your sensor data and other fancy things, which many casual and new users do not understand, let alone want, for half a Netflix sub?

Could be a MySpace moment.

Personally (and this is just me) I don’t use their app on my aged phone, I do my route planning on ridewithgps and would not pay nearly that much to allow others to see how slow I am – and I am part of the product given how much I prop up the leader boards to make others feel better.

[mdavidford]

Not quite – you have to use a

Not quite – you have to use a setting to override the default and put it back to chronological order, and then occasionally it gets confused and falls back to showing things in Strava-enhanced throw-it-all-up-in-the-air-and-see-how-it-falls order.

They did row back on the ‘partner content (don’t call it advertising)’ in the feed though.

[Awavey]

I thought theyd fixed the

I thought theyd fixed the feed to be chronological again if you wanted, and I cant say Id noticed it was inserting random stuff in the feed, it doesnt seem unreasonable to pay something towards its upkeep. you arent obliged to use it, theres still a free option, but lots of the features arent free to maintain, data centres cost money, software developers cost money, theyve tried to monetise the data to councils for planning purposes (hey heres an idea set up temporary bike lanes along the most used routes) but it depends its that cost benefit analysis, how much do you value the service they provide ?

I hate to be the “it only really costs a cup and half of coffee per month” person, but…it does

[wycombewheeler]

I used to pay for it until

I used to pay for it until Strava started putting stuff in my feed that I considered amounted to advertising. I figure if i am the product, then I am not a customer.

If strava can return to a feed that is only those people I follow with activities in chronological order, then I will resume paying.

That said, this might be enough of a stick for me to change my mind, but will be sad to see the end of my veloviewer score if 3rd party sites have no access to leaderboards.

[Yorky-M]

Then pay for it. Why should

Then pay for it. Why should it be free? Do you go into Tesco and say i want these beans for free. thanks.

Super service and a value addition to my cycling life for £6 a month

[Author]

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