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"NordicTrack says it supports right-to-repair rules. However, because of its equipment’s moving parts, the spokesperson says, it believes that restricting acces
by beloch 5y ago
"NordicTrack says it supports right-to-repair rules. However, because of its equipment’s moving parts, the spokesperson says, it believes that restricting access to its operating system is important for safety. "
The real reason they don't want people using other apps or watching third party videos is because anyone doing that is not spending money on iFit. Or, at least, not as much as they could be. NordicTrack likely discounted these treadmills to squeeze out competitors with the intention of making their money back by locking customers into iFit.
If a few users hack their treadmills, that's not going to hurt NordicTrack's bottom line. If most users are doing it because it's as easy as tapping the screen 10 times, then there's a problem. So, NordicTrack has made it harder to gain admin access. Not impossible. Just harder. More people will go back to spending money on iFit, the determined few will roll up their sleeves, and the business model will be restored.
The problem is that this business model is a bait and switch. When people pay for a treadmill they don't expect to be locked into further monthly payments to unlock its features. It's inherently dishonest, and the victim, aside from users, is the competitor who produces an honest product that's paid for entirely up front and is, hence, more expensive and less competitive.
- dbsmith83 5y agoI really wonder about the payoff in the continual cat and mouse game here. At some point, you are going to be paying a sizeable sum to your devs to try a lock out a relatively small amount of technically capable people who will circumvent the system rather than pay a subscription fee. I agree making a little harder once probably convinced a few people to pay up...but after that it has to be diminishing returns and eventually negative returns. I wonder what the tradeoff would be if they marketed their system was one that as open and you could do so many things with it. Like, imagine if the commercials showed how you could use your treadmill but also connect to any app you wanted, like Netflix. To me, that would be a big draw.
- vl 5y agoNordicTrack treadmills are quite expensive actually. Full incline model are $3000 and $4000, and there is no competition for them.
- criddell 5y agoDo they not want to enable access to god mode because you can tinker with the treadmill parameters and do unsafe things or because they think Netflix will somehow break the treadmill? If it's the former, then they should keep god mode for treadmill service operations inaccessible but also allow loading apps like Netflix and Hulu. I'd wager that streaming apps are what most of the people using god mode want.
- nano9 5y agoOn top of that, iFit is not very good. Continuously adjusting incline stopped being interesting about 2 months in. The only thing I liked was that it recorded a running total of distance and elevation, which was good for motivation. I walk outside more than I use the treadmill nowadays, and I use my Apple Watch for motivating statistics. I will probably just sell my treadmill or just give it away.