14 ms·

Strava hikes monthly subscription price

79 points by alistairSH 4y ago

korroziya 4y ago
Good time to plug the latest episode of "How Money works" which goes into detail on everything becoming a subscription: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-34rDklImXY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-34rDklImXY
alistairSH 4y ago
Follow-up video... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3szJ67iM1E&t=1s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3szJ67iM1E&t=1s Apparently, Strava rolled out these increases with no explanation or notice to users. And oddly, they refuse to tell journalists what the official subscription fees will be, leaving it to the journalists to dig around and figure it out on their own. I understand prices have to go up to pay for hosting and development, but this is a weird one. Massive increase, no new features announced, and next to zero communication from the company.
- bochoh 4y ago
  They just needed to show 20% growth in revenue to IPO, and like magic it happened
  - operatingthetan 4y ago
    If you go on /r/strava there have been threads about it all week and a large percentage of posters say they are cancelling. It seems like this is blowing up in their faces a bit.
    - beardedetim 4y ago
      I definitely cancelled mine. I decided to switch to using Garmin Connect fulltime instead of that and Strava.
    - alistairSH 4y ago
      I'm in the "still shows original price" boat for now. If/when my annual renewal comes due and the price is $80 instead of $50, I'll probably cancel as well.
- prepend 4y ago
  Prices should not go up for hosting and development. Prices should go down per user as there are fixed costs. Same with development. Unless strava is losing users their costs aren’t going up, especially not 30%. It’s easy to argue that costs go up but that’s not due to development, but due to corporate overhead. Unless they are doing something really wacky with saas costs, they should have low marginal costs so as long as they have a decent growth, costs go down.
  - iamacyborg 4y ago
    I suspect their costs are going up because more and more people are buying fitness and sports watches and integrating those services with Strava. Not only are they simply storing the received data but they do a lot with it like calculating segments.
    - kshacker 4y ago
      Even then they may have been able to attract a lot more revenue by keeping the old price, or god forbid, offer a discount. If you grow your free users by 100%, and your run costs are only 5-10% of your business, you do not need that much to absorb those incremental costs. However, if your business model requires 20 dollars profit per paying user, then of course your business model needs looking at. Just like Netflix is trying to say.
  - notyourwork 4y ago
    > Prices should not go up for hosting and development. Prices should go down per user as there are fixed costs. Same with development. That's the naive in theory world. In practice, it is not always the case that economies of scale lend to reduced hosting/infra costs. They can in fact balloon, especially for a small population or a small niche use case.
    - prepend 4y ago
      I think it is always the case that it leads to reduced hosting/infra costs. But that doesn’t mean it leads to lower prices as these cost savings aren’t passed on to users. A properly designed saas should have a non-linear cost per user so more users means lower marginal costs. If not, then something is amiss or it’s not a digital product. The “increased costs per user” is just marketing PR blargh.
- klabb3 4y ago
  > And oddly, they refuse to tell journalists what the official subscription fees will be Probably because there is no one price, but rather determined from a formula. Individual price setting is a wet dream of any business with low marginal cost. This is, to my understanding, the force behind DVD region locking (which later transitioned into digital services) - the optimal price depends on the consumer purchasing power, which varies significantly by region. Now region ≠ individual, but the more cohorts and factors you have, the closer fit you can theoretically achieve. In other words, Strava would probably love to charge premium from Bay Area power users on FAANG compensation. At the same time, they’d love to acquire and retain paying users in the lower brackets, rather than none at all. I’m not sure of the legal risks, but in the court of public opinion this is akin to scalping your own product. If I get a different price than my friend, I’ll feel ripped off. To me, it’s surprising that this isn’t happening more. This is an almost inevitable consequence of the surveillance capitalism paradigm of the digital landscape. The incentives are there, and most importantly, the data needed for individual prices is there.
etrautmann 4y ago
Seems like they haven’t improved and still lack incredibly basic features like providing a current pace estimate for runners. I gave up after years of wanting it to improve and much prefer Workoudoors as a one time fair priced alternative that crushes strava on features and posts everything to strava automatically if you want the social side.
- mrcwinn 4y ago
  Yikes! As a starting point, I'd love for Workoutdoors to add a valid SSL and not index their HTTP site to Google. I tried this once on my Apple Watch Ultra and found it a maddening experience. I'm hopeful though that investment in these space improves because, to your point, Strava has not been contributing all that much.
  - etrautmann 4y ago
    I'm a little confused, are the concerns with SSL and indexing related to your experience using it? I use it on Apple watch ultra, and was not aware of security issues, but the find the usability to be excellent in most cases.
  - mikestew 4y ago
    Like sibling, I'm a little confused about the issue with no HTTPS. I rarely even view the site, and no user data is on there AFAICT. And do the data even leave the watch/phone? I don't see any traffic that isn't just synching iCloud data. Anyway, don't want to get hung up on that, but more to agree with your point about the usability of swipe left/right/double-tap here, there, everywhere. I understand the dev is working with they have been given, but I'm just trying to run not be pre-occupied with my watch. And kudos to the dev for outstanding work, and for making an app I want to use. But it just doesn't fit me. So with latest updates in WatchOS 9, I just use the built-in workout app. If I need maps of some sort, I use an app called Footpath (which I discovered here on HN a few years back when the dev posted). Now, I think the $25/year is a little pricey for what you get. On the other hand, I continue to pay it because it's so damned handy. Scrawl on a map with your meat stick, using a phone or tablet, and it snaps it to trails/roads and gives you the mileage. When you're happy with your route, sync it to your watch, sorted. And unlike Workoutdoors, it will then proceed to read you directions (if you so choose). The directions are so good, I've done a 15 mile run on single track in community forests around Anacortes, WA without looking at my watch. Imagine a forest with trails everywhere, intersecting each other, running parallel to each other, making for confusing navigation. But with enough "in 50 meters, turn left on Trail 239", "go past the bridge, then turn right onto Trail 123", "you are off course. The course is 150 feet to your left." It is truly impressive and very helpful when I'm in an unfamiliar area. Garmin can do the same, but it doesn't talk to you, the buzz on your wrist is easy to miss, and all you get is a little arrow at the bottom of the watch screen. didn't mean to ramble on about Footpath. No relationship, just a satisfied customer (mostly; drop that subscription $5-10).
algoatecorn 4y ago
Strava has turned into a social media and comparison platform. Ironically some of the highest performing endurance athletes I know don't even use it anymore. TrainingPeaks + Garmin is where it's at.
- 762236 4y ago
  "Turned into"? It is a social platform with large networking effects. It also supports decent analysis of your performance for self-coached athletes.
- iamacyborg 4y ago
  It sounds more like Garmin are eating their lunch in terms of training features for the general public. TP is obviously even better as a product if you’re working with a coach hence why so many triathletes favour it. Strava’s a fantastic social platform but I don’t use it for anything more than that.
  - 762236 4y ago
    I haven't used Garmin in two years. How does it sound like Garmin is eating Strava's lunch? Back then, Garmin didn't offer me anything for cycling that Strava didn't have. Has this changed?
    - iamacyborg 4y ago
      I guess the question I have is what features did Strava have for cycling which Garmin didn’t? My main sport is running so I’m coming at it from that angle. I suspect the new training status stuff that’s been rolled out would likely be a good fit for cyclists, even those who haven’t purchased a power meter.
      - nradov 4y ago
        Garmin devices require a power meter to calculate training status for cycling. They can calculate other metrics like training load without a power meter. Generally Garmin has much better features than Strava for setting up and executing a structured training plan, then analyzing your performance. But Strava has better social features. Many endurance athletes use both platforms. It's easy to create a free tier Strava account and automatically sync activities from Garmin to show your friends.
iamacyborg 4y ago
No wonder they’ve been so aggressively pushing popups and emails to upgrade to a subscription service over the last few weeks. My favourite was the bait and switch email with this subject line: “Your complete personalised 2022 stats recap is here” Which was actually just an email telling me to upgrade to see my recap.
- voisin 4y ago
  In previous years that recap was included in the free tier.
  - iamacyborg 4y ago
    Yeah, it's such a weird thing to gate behind a paid subscription too. It’s not like I get anything useful beyond minor feel good fuzzies from yearly recaps of that nature.
  - ilikehurdles 4y ago
    So were most of their mapping features. And their leaderboards. Their approach to monetization of late has been to sprinkle a little glitter on existing features and then put the entire feature behind a paywall and raise the price later.
- mikestew 4y ago
  If one has Garmin Connect, go to Reports/Progress Summary, choose date range (including "last year") from dropdown: more stats than you'll know what to do with. And, yeah, I understand getting the stats isn't the point, but perhaps someone finds it helpful if Strava won't give up the data.
stephencoyner 4y ago
I’m shocked they still have such bad route management on desktop and mobile. As a cyclist who likes to use many different routes in different areas, I have accumulated 100+ routes. Yet there is no filtering or grouping system. Why can’t I filter by geography? Or make folders of routes. Edit: I did see on desktop they recently added filter cycling routes by distance or elevation, but that isn’t my problem at all. And the max distance filter is 50 miles which doesn’t filter down the list very much.
- __derek__ 4y ago
  It always amuses me when Strava suggests shortest-path routes with a dozen turns rather than biasing towards paths revealed by its own heat-maps.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    I’ve found sometimes the OSM data is to blame. The Strava route planner refused to take the rail underpass because someone had marked it as bike access: no. Rather than access: dismount. So since I was route planning a bike trip, it just wouldn’t use that path.
    - __derek__ 4y ago
      That makes sense, at least. The examples I'm thinking of are running routes where the tool can follow the path as long as I place an excessive number of waypoints to force its way.
      - Gigachad 4y ago
        This situation outright refused to route through the underpass no matter what I did. I ended up just fixing the OSM data.
aliqot 4y ago
Considering the cost of tubes, tires, etc these days.. So what? Maybe a runner sees it differently, but for a cyclist the value is there, and the cost is justified. I can't think about needing an inflation adjustment in salary and get mad when merchants do also. Good on them. If people will pay it, it's the right move. Can't spend internet points anyway so hit me.
- operatingthetan 4y ago
  I assume Strava thinks about it like you: we have an affluent base who spends thousands a year on their sports, they can afford it. On the other hand, I think most every consumer looks at it like they look at every other recurring service: is what I'm getting for my money worth it versus the competitors? The problem with Strava is that their premium features have been stagnant for years, and the feature set is provided by other companies and services for free or cheaper. I think a good percentage of people are like myself and pay for Strava because I want to support them, and rarely use the premium features. Treating customers badly and not communicating about a price increase breaks the spell and causes the feature comparison and questions from customers.
  - aliqot 4y ago
    > I think most every consumer looks at it like they look at every other recurring service This may not address your comment directly, but I can feel a strawman forming that I'd like to get ahead of for others. Fitness and entertainment are not comparable. If you're into fitness, you're in 100%, especially so at the competitive level. If you're an entertainment person, don't compare it to your Netflix bill, compare it to your grocery bill. Suddenly it makes sense.
    - operatingthetan 4y ago
      Nobody considers Strava's training tools 'serious.' It's a social network for training. The premium tools all have better versions on other platforms like Training Peaks, Xert, TrainerRoad etc. that literally every athelete uses instead. No athlete is sharing their training data with their coach on Strava, so given that I think comparisons to entertainment are fair. >but I can feel a strawman forming Let's address fallacies as they happen instead of before they do, okay? I find this uncharitable.
operatingthetan 4y ago
It's a classic story of a startup with a loyal userbase paying a reasonable fee for stagnating features for years, misjudges customer loyalty, doubles the price, then makes some PR mistakes, and comes out behind in the end.
- abadger9 4y ago
  > and comes out behind in the end. As someone in the tri community in vc funded silicon valley, I haven't heard of a better alternative to strava? would genuinely be interested in trying something better but all my running clubs still seem to be using strava
  - stefan_ 4y ago
    TrainingPeaks, Xert, ... there are a number of sites that cater to professional training analysis. It's a niche they tend to do much better at than Strava since they don't have the social thing to go with it. Meanwhile, if all you want is the social part, why are you paying for Strava.
  - 0xf8 4y ago
    [dead]
  - californical 4y ago
    I mean for me, just.. not using strava. I’m also in a triathlon club in my area, and some people use strava together, but a bunch of people don’t, and you aren’t really missing out on much by not having it. I use intervals.icu for planning my training - it has one main developer and he’s great. And it’s completely free unless you want to donate (which I do)
    - operatingthetan 4y ago
      >I use intervals.icu for planning my training That's the crazy thing about Strava's situation, so many companies have integrated with their API, or built Chrome extentions on top of Strava that replicate their functionality but better and for free. People have been begging for improvments like that for premium and I'd bet by now most have settled on something like intervals.icu and wouldn't miss premium anyway.
moneywoes 4y ago
Could be have an acquisition coming up and are looking to boost TTM revenues?
- stephencoyner 4y ago
  Who would buy them? Please not Nike or some other brand that wants to lock them in
ilamont 4y ago
Strava’s increase also follows rises from other subscription services, such as Netflix and Amazon Prime. And Adobe - I was just told my $14.99 plan was rising to $19.99. Quickbooks online - a similar rise last November.
- latchkey 4y ago
  YouTube Premium too... https://9to5google.com/2022/10/20/youtube-premium-price-hike/ https://9to5google.com/2022/10/20/youtube-premium-price-hike...
notyourwork 4y ago
percent? or per cent? Perhaps a minor correction in title.
- dr_petes 4y ago
  I’m mildly annoyed that the headline doesn’t know the difference between the two.
  - xboxnolifes 4y ago
    There's a difference?
- __derek__ 4y ago
  The article is from a British publication.
tschellenbach 4y ago
They also sign contracts and don't pay bills. Not the most ethical company
jcdavis 4y ago
The messaging here is absolutely terrible, but I suspect most premium users will keep their subscription. There was a similar uproar last time when they gated a bunch of popular features behind premium, but anecdotally it massively increased the subscribers among serious users (myself included). As long as they have a defacto monopoly in the social fitness space, serious users will pay.
insane_dreamer 4y ago
I can't see this having a huge impact; if you're a cyclist/runner who cares about leaderboards and blasting out your accomplishments, you'll continue to pay; if you don't you probably don't have Strava premium. As I cyclist I find RideWithGPS or Komoot much better for actual route planning / navigation (though I use a Wahoo bike computer instead of the app for the latter anyway).
ilikehurdles 4y ago
As it stands, paying for Strava feels like paying for Twitter in terms of the cost/benefit trade off. I was a subscriber for a long time but canceled about 2 or so years ago when they went big in on sponsored content. For me it provided no value over Garmin’s tools, which are free (with a device purchase?) and IMO superior for deep fitness tracking, and respecting of my data privacy. I seldom run into an athlete who doesn’t use a Garmin device. Similarly, the Peloton folks have their own fitness data dashboard, and I assume the Wahoo folks do, too. Strava’s competitive advantage should come from its vast data moat, but I feel like they’re struggling to monetize that effectively. Their social feed is its primary attraction today, but putting that behind a paywall would harm the revenue they get from offering sponsored content (challenges and posts) and analytics products for city planners. Segments was their original big feature, but that has seemingly fallen to abandonment. I _want_ an effective, low-frustration, high trust way to find and follow popular user-created maps (and segments I guess.) Every map search service, from Garmin to Run/RideWithGPS to Strava feels close to something great, but each lacking that wow-factor. If anything, AllTrails is closest to a polished and powerful UX that could swallow that entire market if they had the interest in going multi-modal (beyond the heavy focus on destination trail running/walking/hiking).
PragmaticPulp 4y ago
> For some people, prices will double overnight. For others, it’ll be nothing. Others still yet will split the difference on a wide-ranging scale in between those points. The determining factor? Theoretically a combination of which country you’re in, when exactly you signed up, whether you’re on annual or monthly plans, and finally, exactly what today’s date is, relative to the date of your subscription renewal. I’m not kidding, you can’t make this up. This sounds like the over-complicated scheme you get after too many product managers spend 6 months holding meetings where nobody wants to back down, so instead they continue to add complexity until every last piece of the decision is a compromise.
- seneca 4y ago
  I think you hit it dead on. This is design by committee and organizational dysfunction. Strava has been flailing for years now, dropping much used features and just generally antagonizing its customer base. It's a wonder they're still around and as widely used as they are. Just goes to show how many bad decisions you can absorb as a market leader, I suppose.
  - chairmanwow1 4y ago
    What is a good alternative? I want some analytics / tools for training specific distances.
    - camel_gopher 4y ago
      TrainerRoad is outstanding for structured training. Doesn't have the social aspect.
    - oezi 4y ago
      Intervals.icu
      - mbesto 4y ago
        https://intervals.icu/ https://intervals.icu/ - for the lazy The app is incredible if you're a data junky and very serious about performance. Strava is more sexy about maps and sharing though.
oezi 4y ago
Strava is being massively greedy here without showing innovation over the last years. Worse the app is still plagued with import issues and inaccuracies such as the famous Strava tax where it always rounds down distances so people stop for instance a race when their running watch shows a 10.0 km run only to find out that it was just 9.995 km and Strava shows it as 9.99 km.
- nequo 4y ago
  > when their running watch shows a 10.0 km run only to find out that it was just 9.995 km and Strava shows it as 9.99 km. That is a 10 meter difference between what Strava and the running watch report. That does not sound that atrocious?
  - goguy 4y ago
    Definitely not. Everyone knows these things are super accurate, considering that it's pretty darn good.
  - jwineinger 4y ago
    I think the point is that effort is not tracked as a 10k, so you don't see that in your PR history, etc. Plus it is just annoying to do something big for yourself and have a tool publicly shortchange you.
- ohyoutravel 4y ago
  Somewhat small complaint, but this bit me. Did a half marathon and got a PR, stopped when my watch hit 13.1. Strava didn’t record this as a HM because it had the mileage at 13.09 or something. Very annoying and still irks me.
  - radlad 4y ago
    Hah - I did a Strava challenge once where that happened on a 102 mile ride. I always ride a little extra now.
    - 4y ago
mbesto 4y ago
Not surprised. My take - Strava was founded over 13 years ago, which is a dinosaur in startup land. They've raised $150m+ from investors and they want a return, so the company is scrambling to make decisions which can make the company more money. So I wouldn't be surprised if the specification for pricing was made by a committee and implemented by engineers with little direction. And since no one has conviction on what will work, this is your result (throwing stuff at the wall). Note - if you follow Strava's history, this isn't the first time they've been screwy with their commercial model. They had this funky "Training, Safety and Analysis" pack pricing program[0] that was confusing and they ultimately reverted back to the simple pricing model. Ultimately the unit economics just don't work out in this space - 100 million people don't want to pay to hold their training data in a prettier interface when they can just get it for free with Garmin (Strava does more than that btw, but the people who are fanatical about that info are a miniority). Likewise, if they don't IPO, there are too few players in the space that would make a $1b+ acquisition. [0] - https://www.bikeradar.com/news/strava-is-making-a-huge-change-to-its-premium-membership-heres-all-you-need-to-know/ https://www.bikeradar.com/news/strava-is-making-a-huge-chang...
- prhn 4y ago
  I think you're mostly correct here, but Strava's main selling point isn't the data store and interface (which in my opinion is not great). It's the social feature. I've met a massive community of cyclists: rode with cycling "celebs," trained with really strong amateurs, met a ton of people, learned about weekly group rides, learned about the best rides in the area, and made some very good friends. Most of this was facilitated by Strava. I'm glad it hasn't devolved into just another shitty social media app, but I do feel like they are not capitalizing on what makes them unique. Right now that is being the de facto cycling social media network.
  - jeffbee 4y ago
    > I've ... made some very good friends. This is my experience. Strava is the only social network where I've made friends. It is a net positive in life. Every other social network I tried to use caused me to fire some friends eventually.
amelius 4y ago
What do they sell?
- operatingthetan 4y ago
  Status anxiety for endurance athletes. Half /s.
  - justinator 4y ago
    Ha. Not disagreeing with you, but it's a social network for athletes. What's my favorite athlete up to? How can I emulate her? Strava tells me.
- cheeze 4y ago
  Premium features. Heart rate tracking, the ability to map rides, the ability to compare prior segments. For most people, it makes all of zero sense. For someone who spends 500h+ a year on their bike, it's an easy purchase. Strava kinda sucks but it blows the competition out the water.
  - InCityDreams 4y ago
    Iook up https://intervals.icu https://intervals.icu and scroll down - i would say strava got blown out of the water!
  - loeg 4y ago
    I spend 500h+ on the bike but don't find much value in Strava's paid offering relative to the free version.
  - wl 4y ago
    I'm in the 500 hour a year set. Strava's analytics don't hold a candle to intervals.icu or the stuff you can do with Golden Cheetah or TrainingPeaks. Ride With GPS is a much better route planner. Every time Strava has given me a free trial, I've been underwhelmed. The segment analysis is the only premium feature I really miss, but it's not worth another subscription.
folli 4y ago
Shameless plug: I'm working on a Strava like web app and I'm looking for Beta testers: https://cubetrek.com/static/join.html https://cubetrek.com/static/join.html It's a hobby project of mine, because I wanted to build an app to track my hiking and skiing activities in a way I like it, including 3D visualization (I live in Switzerland, so it's usually always either up or down and that's hard to visualize on a 2D map) and easy comparison of past efforts on the same track. You're more than welcome to try it out!
- operatingthetan 4y ago
  Posting the money shot of your app directly: https://cubetrek.com/view/6338 https://cubetrek.com/view/6338 Wow this is freaking cool. Please do bikes!
  - folli 4y ago
    Thanks man! I mean you can do bikes, it just takes a GPS track file (GPX or FIT) and plots the route. You can also try it out without creating an account (drag and drop your file on the front page: https://cubetrek.com https://cubetrek.com)
  - mikestew 4y ago
    "Money shot" is right; let me just close that office door... Crude humor aside, that's enough to get me to go poke around later. Well done. I don't live in the Alps, but the hills around the Seattle Eastside area are enough to make good use of such a tool.
    - folli 4y ago
      Yes, give it a try! The steeper the terrain, the nicer the model looks (in my opinion). Here's another one: https://cubetrek.com/view/5813 https://cubetrek.com/view/5813
- prhn 4y ago
  This is really cool! Any of the code open source?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
post_break 4y ago
If someone is going to shit on your company, and you're in the same sports category as him, you do not want it to be Ray. This is going to blow up in their faces. To me he's kind of like the face of running, Strava, Wahoo, etc. Yikes.
- Exmoor 4y ago
  Seriously. Every running/fitness related subreddit I'm in is full of comments about people cancelling their Strava subscriptions.
  - iamacyborg 4y ago
    I’ve not seen anything pop up about it in r/advancedrunning yet
stephencoyner 4y ago
I had to check the app and my subscription in the App Store to confirm, but my annual subscription is jumping from $59.99 to $79.99. I’m set to renew at the end of this month.
Dachande663 4y ago
I started supporting smashrun.com a few years ago. Tiny team, passionate updates, and it feels good to support people living the life they want vs giving some VC a 10x return.
Wonnk13 4y ago
WOW. Ray / DCRainmaker is a huge voice in the endurance sports world, you don’t want this kind of publicity from him. I’ve had a Strava since, forever? Over a decade at this point. It’s the de facto app for cycling and running and is one social media app I get real value from. I will say- as someone who pays for Strava Premium their product strategy has been a mess for ages. Feature requests go unacknowledged for years and they keep adding silly features no one wants. I’ll keep using it because my friends are all on it, but it does feel like they are slowly dying of self inflicted wounds.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  I wonder if their infrastructure costs are getting too much. Having all that backlog of data that has to be processed to do the high score boards and such must cost a fortune.
james_pm 4y ago
It's going from $9.99 to $14.99/month in Canada. I'm out. Even at $10 I was considering whether it was worth it. At $15 it's not even close. I turned off auto-renew this morning when I saw the DC Rainmaker video.
tonymet 4y ago
Stravas security breaches have remained off the radar. Private runs and maps are exposed . There have been cases of harassment, doxxing and assault via these breaches. I finally quit Strava when I got an Apple Watch and they added friction to Apple health sync. As a paid subscriber it was received as deliberately hostile UX to pump daily engagement numbers They have a great network of amateur athletes but it's not worth the risk
- folli 4y ago
  I'm also looking in integrating Apple Health sync data into an app I'm currently working on. However, to be honest, Apple is also being a PITA. Pretty much every other fitness tracker (Garmin, Polar, Suunto) offers some kind of Web API to access and sync data. But of course Apple does not do that, you need to build some kind of app on iOS which the user needs to install on his/her device, which of course adds extra friction.
  - tonymet 4y ago
    The industry is moving toward on-device APIs for privacy protection. that way the data can remain encrypted & private on the device and there's less risk of a breach. In Strava's case they already have the integration complete and the hostile UX is them forcing you to open the app and manually trigger the sync rather than running the sync as a listener or during background refresh . They could even add a "sync all" button but instead they force you to sync dozens of activities (my activities tend to be short + mixed). I recommend getting ready for on device for your app – all apps are heading toward on-device for data & even model training.
    - folli 4y ago
      I find that a bit hard to believe for the more established device makers (e.g. Garmin, Polar, Suunto). Their device is a watch, if I want to look at analytics, I will need to move the data off to the cloud, I don't want to look at graphs and maps on a half-inch watchface. Apple is a special case, because they offer a tightly closed ecosystem with watches, phones, laptops...
bluecalm 4y ago
I love Strava. It's a shitty app. It's missing many simple features. It doesn't even do GPS reading right (segments are often cut out extended at the end/beginning of the activity). It does segment matching incorrectly (matches to the first recorded activity of the segment creator instead of matching to averaged matched runs). Route creator is terrible. You can't even change the place the circular route starts at. There are many more little quirks, some straight up terrible programming and failure to implement obvious cool features. It's great only because of massive community. Heatmaps (the killer feature besides segments), ability to see what routes other people ride, segments. Those are simple uses of content the users provide which makes it great and let you discover routes, meet people and have a little competition. If we had some kind of way to export the data to another project and wouldn't need to go through the minefield of patents then a leaner start up could easily take its place. Maybe it's not a billion dollar niche yet but a few hundred million market for a team of a few good programmers could be good enough to give it a shot.
truthwhisperer 4y ago
[dead]
unglaublich 4y ago
They want ROI for their recent $150M raise…
jeffbee 4y ago
Not seeing a lot of rational discourse here in the thread. The price of Strava has been in continual monotonic decline in real dollar terms. A 35% price increase across the board, if that is the weighted average, would just bring them up to 2009-2023 chained inflation.
- rpep 4y ago
  People are annoyed because the competitors have got a lot better and because Strava hasn’t improved over that period, in many ways it’s got more annoying to use.
scott_w 4y ago
I’m not a Strava subscriber (I prefer TrainingPeaks for that) but wow, this is a poor way to communicate price increases. Most people can deal with prices increasing. What they can’t deal with is a total lack of communication about that increase. If Strava don’t know what they’re going to charge then they shouldn’t communicate until they can put that number in front of customers. The alternative is… this!
marcocampana 4y ago
mmm so entry https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34373206 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34373206 was merged into this one because it was a duplicate. Thing is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34373206 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34373206 was #1 on the homepage and the merge with this made it disappear from the HN homepage. Was this intentional?
francisofascii 4y ago
Kinda was waiting for this to happen. Overall I have been happy being a Strava subscriber, but great web app experiences never last. Eventually quality suffers, Ads get crazy, or prices go way up.
knaik94 4y ago
@Dang I am confused, was this merged? The Dcrainmaker article is more informative and discusses more nuances. https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2023/01/strava-raises-prices-doubling.html https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2023/01/strava-raises-prices-dou...
thebigspacefuck 4y ago
Not many of my friends use it regularly but it’s sometimes fun to look them up and see how fast they are. A couple of them have PRs where Strava must have screwed up because it says they ran a 3:44 mile or something. I run a PR at a race and Strava shorts me 0.01 miles so my PR isn’t on it. It’s hard to take it too seriously. I’ll just train on my own and keep track of PRs on my own, may use the free features from time to time.
nsteel 4y ago
I think Strava need to do a better job monetizing their Api. API consumers (other websites) should be charged and maybe even move integration support as a premium feature. They need to cash in on the fact that everyone is using them as a fitness platform aggregation service.

79 points by alistairSH 4y ago

Good time to plug the latest episode of "How Money works" which goes into detail on everything becoming a subscription: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-34rDklImXY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-34rDklImXY

alistairSH 4y ago

Follow-up video... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3szJ67iM1E&t=1s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3szJ67iM1E&t=1s Apparently, Strava rolled out these increases with no explanation or notice to users. And oddly, they refuse to tell journalists what the official subscription fees will be, leaving it to the journalists to dig around and figure it out on their own. I understand prices have to go up to pay for hosting and development, but this is a weird one. Massive increase, no new features announced, and next to zero communication from the company.

bochoh 4y ago
They just needed to show 20% growth in revenue to IPO, and like magic it happened
- operatingthetan 4y ago
  If you go on /r/strava there have been threads about it all week and a large percentage of posters say they are cancelling. It seems like this is blowing up in their faces a bit.
  - beardedetim 4y ago
    I definitely cancelled mine. I decided to switch to using Garmin Connect fulltime instead of that and Strava.
  - alistairSH 4y ago
    I'm in the "still shows original price" boat for now. If/when my annual renewal comes due and the price is $80 instead of $50, I'll probably cancel as well.
prepend 4y ago
Prices should not go up for hosting and development. Prices should go down per user as there are fixed costs. Same with development. Unless strava is losing users their costs aren’t going up, especially not 30%. It’s easy to argue that costs go up but that’s not due to development, but due to corporate overhead. Unless they are doing something really wacky with saas costs, they should have low marginal costs so as long as they have a decent growth, costs go down.
- iamacyborg 4y ago
  I suspect their costs are going up because more and more people are buying fitness and sports watches and integrating those services with Strava. Not only are they simply storing the received data but they do a lot with it like calculating segments.
  - kshacker 4y ago
    Even then they may have been able to attract a lot more revenue by keeping the old price, or god forbid, offer a discount. If you grow your free users by 100%, and your run costs are only 5-10% of your business, you do not need that much to absorb those incremental costs. However, if your business model requires 20 dollars profit per paying user, then of course your business model needs looking at. Just like Netflix is trying to say.
- notyourwork 4y ago
  > Prices should not go up for hosting and development. Prices should go down per user as there are fixed costs. Same with development. That's the naive in theory world. In practice, it is not always the case that economies of scale lend to reduced hosting/infra costs. They can in fact balloon, especially for a small population or a small niche use case.
  - prepend 4y ago
    I think it is always the case that it leads to reduced hosting/infra costs. But that doesn’t mean it leads to lower prices as these cost savings aren’t passed on to users. A properly designed saas should have a non-linear cost per user so more users means lower marginal costs. If not, then something is amiss or it’s not a digital product. The “increased costs per user” is just marketing PR blargh.
klabb3 4y ago
> And oddly, they refuse to tell journalists what the official subscription fees will be Probably because there is no one price, but rather determined from a formula. Individual price setting is a wet dream of any business with low marginal cost. This is, to my understanding, the force behind DVD region locking (which later transitioned into digital services) - the optimal price depends on the consumer purchasing power, which varies significantly by region. Now region ≠ individual, but the more cohorts and factors you have, the closer fit you can theoretically achieve. In other words, Strava would probably love to charge premium from Bay Area power users on FAANG compensation. At the same time, they’d love to acquire and retain paying users in the lower brackets, rather than none at all. I’m not sure of the legal risks, but in the court of public opinion this is akin to scalping your own product. If I get a different price than my friend, I’ll feel ripped off. To me, it’s surprising that this isn’t happening more. This is an almost inevitable consequence of the surveillance capitalism paradigm of the digital landscape. The incentives are there, and most importantly, the data needed for individual prices is there.

etrautmann 4y ago

Seems like they haven’t improved and still lack incredibly basic features like providing a current pace estimate for runners. I gave up after years of wanting it to improve and much prefer Workoudoors as a one time fair priced alternative that crushes strava on features and posts everything to strava automatically if you want the social side.

mrcwinn 4y ago
Yikes! As a starting point, I'd love for Workoutdoors to add a valid SSL and not index their HTTP site to Google. I tried this once on my Apple Watch Ultra and found it a maddening experience. I'm hopeful though that investment in these space improves because, to your point, Strava has not been contributing all that much.
- etrautmann 4y ago
  I'm a little confused, are the concerns with SSL and indexing related to your experience using it? I use it on Apple watch ultra, and was not aware of security issues, but the find the usability to be excellent in most cases.
- mikestew 4y ago
  Like sibling, I'm a little confused about the issue with no HTTPS. I rarely even view the site, and no user data is on there AFAICT. And do the data even leave the watch/phone? I don't see any traffic that isn't just synching iCloud data. Anyway, don't want to get hung up on that, but more to agree with your point about the usability of swipe left/right/double-tap here, there, everywhere. I understand the dev is working with they have been given, but I'm just trying to run not be pre-occupied with my watch. And kudos to the dev for outstanding work, and for making an app I want to use. But it just doesn't fit me. So with latest updates in WatchOS 9, I just use the built-in workout app. If I need maps of some sort, I use an app called Footpath (which I discovered here on HN a few years back when the dev posted). Now, I think the $25/year is a little pricey for what you get. On the other hand, I continue to pay it because it's so damned handy. Scrawl on a map with your meat stick, using a phone or tablet, and it snaps it to trails/roads and gives you the mileage. When you're happy with your route, sync it to your watch, sorted. And unlike Workoutdoors, it will then proceed to read you directions (if you so choose). The directions are so good, I've done a 15 mile run on single track in community forests around Anacortes, WA without looking at my watch. Imagine a forest with trails everywhere, intersecting each other, running parallel to each other, making for confusing navigation. But with enough "in 50 meters, turn left on Trail 239", "go past the bridge, then turn right onto Trail 123", "you are off course. The course is 150 feet to your left." It is truly impressive and very helpful when I'm in an unfamiliar area. Garmin can do the same, but it doesn't talk to you, the buzz on your wrist is easy to miss, and all you get is a little arrow at the bottom of the watch screen. didn't mean to ramble on about Footpath. No relationship, just a satisfied customer (mostly; drop that subscription $5-10).

algoatecorn 4y ago

Strava has turned into a social media and comparison platform. Ironically some of the highest performing endurance athletes I know don't even use it anymore. TrainingPeaks + Garmin is where it's at.

762236 4y ago
"Turned into"? It is a social platform with large networking effects. It also supports decent analysis of your performance for self-coached athletes.
iamacyborg 4y ago
It sounds more like Garmin are eating their lunch in terms of training features for the general public. TP is obviously even better as a product if you’re working with a coach hence why so many triathletes favour it. Strava’s a fantastic social platform but I don’t use it for anything more than that.
- 762236 4y ago
  I haven't used Garmin in two years. How does it sound like Garmin is eating Strava's lunch? Back then, Garmin didn't offer me anything for cycling that Strava didn't have. Has this changed?
  - iamacyborg 4y ago
    I guess the question I have is what features did Strava have for cycling which Garmin didn’t? My main sport is running so I’m coming at it from that angle. I suspect the new training status stuff that’s been rolled out would likely be a good fit for cyclists, even those who haven’t purchased a power meter.
    - nradov 4y ago
      Garmin devices require a power meter to calculate training status for cycling. They can calculate other metrics like training load without a power meter. Generally Garmin has much better features than Strava for setting up and executing a structured training plan, then analyzing your performance. But Strava has better social features. Many endurance athletes use both platforms. It's easy to create a free tier Strava account and automatically sync activities from Garmin to show your friends.

iamacyborg 4y ago

No wonder they’ve been so aggressively pushing popups and emails to upgrade to a subscription service over the last few weeks. My favourite was the bait and switch email with this subject line: “Your complete personalised 2022 stats recap is here” Which was actually just an email telling me to upgrade to see my recap.

voisin 4y ago
In previous years that recap was included in the free tier.
- iamacyborg 4y ago
  Yeah, it's such a weird thing to gate behind a paid subscription too. It’s not like I get anything useful beyond minor feel good fuzzies from yearly recaps of that nature.
- ilikehurdles 4y ago
  So were most of their mapping features. And their leaderboards. Their approach to monetization of late has been to sprinkle a little glitter on existing features and then put the entire feature behind a paywall and raise the price later.
mikestew 4y ago
If one has Garmin Connect, go to Reports/Progress Summary, choose date range (including "last year") from dropdown: more stats than you'll know what to do with. And, yeah, I understand getting the stats isn't the point, but perhaps someone finds it helpful if Strava won't give up the data.

stephencoyner 4y ago

I’m shocked they still have such bad route management on desktop and mobile. As a cyclist who likes to use many different routes in different areas, I have accumulated 100+ routes. Yet there is no filtering or grouping system. Why can’t I filter by geography? Or make folders of routes. Edit: I did see on desktop they recently added filter cycling routes by distance or elevation, but that isn’t my problem at all. And the max distance filter is 50 miles which doesn’t filter down the list very much.

__derek__ 4y ago
It always amuses me when Strava suggests shortest-path routes with a dozen turns rather than biasing towards paths revealed by its own heat-maps.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  I’ve found sometimes the OSM data is to blame. The Strava route planner refused to take the rail underpass because someone had marked it as bike access: no. Rather than access: dismount. So since I was route planning a bike trip, it just wouldn’t use that path.
  - __derek__ 4y ago
    That makes sense, at least. The examples I'm thinking of are running routes where the tool can follow the path as long as I place an excessive number of waypoints to force its way.
    - Gigachad 4y ago
      This situation outright refused to route through the underpass no matter what I did. I ended up just fixing the OSM data.

aliqot 4y ago

Considering the cost of tubes, tires, etc these days.. So what? Maybe a runner sees it differently, but for a cyclist the value is there, and the cost is justified. I can't think about needing an inflation adjustment in salary and get mad when merchants do also. Good on them. If people will pay it, it's the right move. Can't spend internet points anyway so hit me.

operatingthetan 4y ago
I assume Strava thinks about it like you: we have an affluent base who spends thousands a year on their sports, they can afford it. On the other hand, I think most every consumer looks at it like they look at every other recurring service: is what I'm getting for my money worth it versus the competitors? The problem with Strava is that their premium features have been stagnant for years, and the feature set is provided by other companies and services for free or cheaper. I think a good percentage of people are like myself and pay for Strava because I want to support them, and rarely use the premium features. Treating customers badly and not communicating about a price increase breaks the spell and causes the feature comparison and questions from customers.
- aliqot 4y ago
  > I think most every consumer looks at it like they look at every other recurring service This may not address your comment directly, but I can feel a strawman forming that I'd like to get ahead of for others. Fitness and entertainment are not comparable. If you're into fitness, you're in 100%, especially so at the competitive level. If you're an entertainment person, don't compare it to your Netflix bill, compare it to your grocery bill. Suddenly it makes sense.
  - operatingthetan 4y ago
    Nobody considers Strava's training tools 'serious.' It's a social network for training. The premium tools all have better versions on other platforms like Training Peaks, Xert, TrainerRoad etc. that literally every athelete uses instead. No athlete is sharing their training data with their coach on Strava, so given that I think comparisons to entertainment are fair. >but I can feel a strawman forming Let's address fallacies as they happen instead of before they do, okay? I find this uncharitable.

operatingthetan 4y ago

It's a classic story of a startup with a loyal userbase paying a reasonable fee for stagnating features for years, misjudges customer loyalty, doubles the price, then makes some PR mistakes, and comes out behind in the end.

abadger9 4y ago
> and comes out behind in the end. As someone in the tri community in vc funded silicon valley, I haven't heard of a better alternative to strava? would genuinely be interested in trying something better but all my running clubs still seem to be using strava
- stefan_ 4y ago
  TrainingPeaks, Xert, ... there are a number of sites that cater to professional training analysis. It's a niche they tend to do much better at than Strava since they don't have the social thing to go with it. Meanwhile, if all you want is the social part, why are you paying for Strava.
- 0xf8 4y ago
  [dead]
- californical 4y ago
  I mean for me, just.. not using strava. I’m also in a triathlon club in my area, and some people use strava together, but a bunch of people don’t, and you aren’t really missing out on much by not having it. I use intervals.icu for planning my training - it has one main developer and he’s great. And it’s completely free unless you want to donate (which I do)
  - operatingthetan 4y ago
    >I use intervals.icu for planning my training That's the crazy thing about Strava's situation, so many companies have integrated with their API, or built Chrome extentions on top of Strava that replicate their functionality but better and for free. People have been begging for improvments like that for premium and I'd bet by now most have settled on something like intervals.icu and wouldn't miss premium anyway.

moneywoes 4y ago

Could be have an acquisition coming up and are looking to boost TTM revenues?

stephencoyner 4y ago
Who would buy them? Please not Nike or some other brand that wants to lock them in

ilamont 4y ago

Strava’s increase also follows rises from other subscription services, such as Netflix and Amazon Prime. And Adobe - I was just told my $14.99 plan was rising to $19.99. Quickbooks online - a similar rise last November.

latchkey 4y ago
YouTube Premium too... https://9to5google.com/2022/10/20/youtube-premium-price-hike/ https://9to5google.com/2022/10/20/youtube-premium-price-hike...

notyourwork 4y ago

percent? or per cent? Perhaps a minor correction in title.

dr_petes 4y ago
I’m mildly annoyed that the headline doesn’t know the difference between the two.
- xboxnolifes 4y ago
  There's a difference?
__derek__ 4y ago
The article is from a British publication.

tschellenbach 4y ago

They also sign contracts and don't pay bills. Not the most ethical company

jcdavis 4y ago

The messaging here is absolutely terrible, but I suspect most premium users will keep their subscription. There was a similar uproar last time when they gated a bunch of popular features behind premium, but anecdotally it massively increased the subscribers among serious users (myself included). As long as they have a defacto monopoly in the social fitness space, serious users will pay.

insane_dreamer 4y ago

I can't see this having a huge impact; if you're a cyclist/runner who cares about leaderboards and blasting out your accomplishments, you'll continue to pay; if you don't you probably don't have Strava premium. As I cyclist I find RideWithGPS or Komoot much better for actual route planning / navigation (though I use a Wahoo bike computer instead of the app for the latter anyway).

ilikehurdles 4y ago

As it stands, paying for Strava feels like paying for Twitter in terms of the cost/benefit trade off. I was a subscriber for a long time but canceled about 2 or so years ago when they went big in on sponsored content. For me it provided no value over Garmin’s tools, which are free (with a device purchase?) and IMO superior for deep fitness tracking, and respecting of my data privacy. I seldom run into an athlete who doesn’t use a Garmin device. Similarly, the Peloton folks have their own fitness data dashboard, and I assume the Wahoo folks do, too. Strava’s competitive advantage should come from its vast data moat, but I feel like they’re struggling to monetize that effectively. Their social feed is its primary attraction today, but putting that behind a paywall would harm the revenue they get from offering sponsored content (challenges and posts) and analytics products for city planners. Segments was their original big feature, but that has seemingly fallen to abandonment. I _want_ an effective, low-frustration, high trust way to find and follow popular user-created maps (and segments I guess.) Every map search service, from Garmin to Run/RideWithGPS to Strava feels close to something great, but each lacking that wow-factor. If anything, AllTrails is closest to a polished and powerful UX that could swallow that entire market if they had the interest in going multi-modal (beyond the heavy focus on destination trail running/walking/hiking).

PragmaticPulp 4y ago

> For some people, prices will double overnight. For others, it’ll be nothing. Others still yet will split the difference on a wide-ranging scale in between those points. The determining factor? Theoretically a combination of which country you’re in, when exactly you signed up, whether you’re on annual or monthly plans, and finally, exactly what today’s date is, relative to the date of your subscription renewal. I’m not kidding, you can’t make this up. This sounds like the over-complicated scheme you get after too many product managers spend 6 months holding meetings where nobody wants to back down, so instead they continue to add complexity until every last piece of the decision is a compromise.

seneca 4y ago
I think you hit it dead on. This is design by committee and organizational dysfunction. Strava has been flailing for years now, dropping much used features and just generally antagonizing its customer base. It's a wonder they're still around and as widely used as they are. Just goes to show how many bad decisions you can absorb as a market leader, I suppose.
- chairmanwow1 4y ago
  What is a good alternative? I want some analytics / tools for training specific distances.
  - camel_gopher 4y ago
    TrainerRoad is outstanding for structured training. Doesn't have the social aspect.
  - oezi 4y ago
    Intervals.icu
    - mbesto 4y ago
      https://intervals.icu/ https://intervals.icu/ - for the lazy The app is incredible if you're a data junky and very serious about performance. Strava is more sexy about maps and sharing though.

oezi 4y ago

Strava is being massively greedy here without showing innovation over the last years. Worse the app is still plagued with import issues and inaccuracies such as the famous Strava tax where it always rounds down distances so people stop for instance a race when their running watch shows a 10.0 km run only to find out that it was just 9.995 km and Strava shows it as 9.99 km.

nequo 4y ago
> when their running watch shows a 10.0 km run only to find out that it was just 9.995 km and Strava shows it as 9.99 km. That is a 10 meter difference between what Strava and the running watch report. That does not sound that atrocious?
- goguy 4y ago
  Definitely not. Everyone knows these things are super accurate, considering that it's pretty darn good.
- jwineinger 4y ago
  I think the point is that effort is not tracked as a 10k, so you don't see that in your PR history, etc. Plus it is just annoying to do something big for yourself and have a tool publicly shortchange you.
ohyoutravel 4y ago
Somewhat small complaint, but this bit me. Did a half marathon and got a PR, stopped when my watch hit 13.1. Strava didn’t record this as a HM because it had the mileage at 13.09 or something. Very annoying and still irks me.
- radlad 4y ago
  Hah - I did a Strava challenge once where that happened on a 102 mile ride. I always ride a little extra now.
  - 4y ago

mbesto 4y ago

Not surprised. My take - Strava was founded over 13 years ago, which is a dinosaur in startup land. They've raised $150m+ from investors and they want a return, so the company is scrambling to make decisions which can make the company more money. So I wouldn't be surprised if the specification for pricing was made by a committee and implemented by engineers with little direction. And since no one has conviction on what will work, this is your result (throwing stuff at the wall). Note - if you follow Strava's history, this isn't the first time they've been screwy with their commercial model. They had this funky "Training, Safety and Analysis" pack pricing program[0] that was confusing and they ultimately reverted back to the simple pricing model. Ultimately the unit economics just don't work out in this space - 100 million people don't want to pay to hold their training data in a prettier interface when they can just get it for free with Garmin (Strava does more than that btw, but the people who are fanatical about that info are a miniority). Likewise, if they don't IPO, there are too few players in the space that would make a $1b+ acquisition. [0] - https://www.bikeradar.com/news/strava-is-making-a-huge-change-to-its-premium-membership-heres-all-you-need-to-know/ https://www.bikeradar.com/news/strava-is-making-a-huge-chang...

prhn 4y ago
I think you're mostly correct here, but Strava's main selling point isn't the data store and interface (which in my opinion is not great). It's the social feature. I've met a massive community of cyclists: rode with cycling "celebs," trained with really strong amateurs, met a ton of people, learned about weekly group rides, learned about the best rides in the area, and made some very good friends. Most of this was facilitated by Strava. I'm glad it hasn't devolved into just another shitty social media app, but I do feel like they are not capitalizing on what makes them unique. Right now that is being the de facto cycling social media network.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  > I've ... made some very good friends. This is my experience. Strava is the only social network where I've made friends. It is a net positive in life. Every other social network I tried to use caused me to fire some friends eventually.

amelius 4y ago

What do they sell?

operatingthetan 4y ago
Status anxiety for endurance athletes. Half /s.
- justinator 4y ago
  Ha. Not disagreeing with you, but it's a social network for athletes. What's my favorite athlete up to? How can I emulate her? Strava tells me.
cheeze 4y ago
Premium features. Heart rate tracking, the ability to map rides, the ability to compare prior segments. For most people, it makes all of zero sense. For someone who spends 500h+ a year on their bike, it's an easy purchase. Strava kinda sucks but it blows the competition out the water.
- InCityDreams 4y ago
  Iook up https://intervals.icu https://intervals.icu and scroll down - i would say strava got blown out of the water!
- loeg 4y ago
  I spend 500h+ on the bike but don't find much value in Strava's paid offering relative to the free version.
- wl 4y ago
  I'm in the 500 hour a year set. Strava's analytics don't hold a candle to intervals.icu or the stuff you can do with Golden Cheetah or TrainingPeaks. Ride With GPS is a much better route planner. Every time Strava has given me a free trial, I've been underwhelmed. The segment analysis is the only premium feature I really miss, but it's not worth another subscription.

folli 4y ago

Shameless plug: I'm working on a Strava like web app and I'm looking for Beta testers: https://cubetrek.com/static/join.html https://cubetrek.com/static/join.html It's a hobby project of mine, because I wanted to build an app to track my hiking and skiing activities in a way I like it, including 3D visualization (I live in Switzerland, so it's usually always either up or down and that's hard to visualize on a 2D map) and easy comparison of past efforts on the same track. You're more than welcome to try it out!

operatingthetan 4y ago
Posting the money shot of your app directly: https://cubetrek.com/view/6338 https://cubetrek.com/view/6338 Wow this is freaking cool. Please do bikes!
- folli 4y ago
  Thanks man! I mean you can do bikes, it just takes a GPS track file (GPX or FIT) and plots the route. You can also try it out without creating an account (drag and drop your file on the front page: https://cubetrek.com https://cubetrek.com)
- mikestew 4y ago
  "Money shot" is right; let me just close that office door... Crude humor aside, that's enough to get me to go poke around later. Well done. I don't live in the Alps, but the hills around the Seattle Eastside area are enough to make good use of such a tool.
  - folli 4y ago
    Yes, give it a try! The steeper the terrain, the nicer the model looks (in my opinion). Here's another one: https://cubetrek.com/view/5813 https://cubetrek.com/view/5813
prhn 4y ago
This is really cool! Any of the code open source?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

post_break 4y ago

If someone is going to shit on your company, and you're in the same sports category as him, you do not want it to be Ray. This is going to blow up in their faces. To me he's kind of like the face of running, Strava, Wahoo, etc. Yikes.

Exmoor 4y ago
Seriously. Every running/fitness related subreddit I'm in is full of comments about people cancelling their Strava subscriptions.
- iamacyborg 4y ago
  I’ve not seen anything pop up about it in r/advancedrunning yet

stephencoyner 4y ago

I had to check the app and my subscription in the App Store to confirm, but my annual subscription is jumping from $59.99 to $79.99. I’m set to renew at the end of this month.

Dachande663 4y ago

I started supporting smashrun.com a few years ago. Tiny team, passionate updates, and it feels good to support people living the life they want vs giving some VC a 10x return.

Wonnk13 4y ago

WOW. Ray / DCRainmaker is a huge voice in the endurance sports world, you don’t want this kind of publicity from him. I’ve had a Strava since, forever? Over a decade at this point. It’s the de facto app for cycling and running and is one social media app I get real value from. I will say- as someone who pays for Strava Premium their product strategy has been a mess for ages. Feature requests go unacknowledged for years and they keep adding silly features no one wants. I’ll keep using it because my friends are all on it, but it does feel like they are slowly dying of self inflicted wounds.

Gigachad 4y ago
I wonder if their infrastructure costs are getting too much. Having all that backlog of data that has to be processed to do the high score boards and such must cost a fortune.

james_pm 4y ago

It's going from $9.99 to $14.99/month in Canada. I'm out. Even at $10 I was considering whether it was worth it. At $15 it's not even close. I turned off auto-renew this morning when I saw the DC Rainmaker video.

tonymet 4y ago

Stravas security breaches have remained off the radar. Private runs and maps are exposed . There have been cases of harassment, doxxing and assault via these breaches. I finally quit Strava when I got an Apple Watch and they added friction to Apple health sync. As a paid subscriber it was received as deliberately hostile UX to pump daily engagement numbers They have a great network of amateur athletes but it's not worth the risk

folli 4y ago
I'm also looking in integrating Apple Health sync data into an app I'm currently working on. However, to be honest, Apple is also being a PITA. Pretty much every other fitness tracker (Garmin, Polar, Suunto) offers some kind of Web API to access and sync data. But of course Apple does not do that, you need to build some kind of app on iOS which the user needs to install on his/her device, which of course adds extra friction.
- tonymet 4y ago
  The industry is moving toward on-device APIs for privacy protection. that way the data can remain encrypted & private on the device and there's less risk of a breach. In Strava's case they already have the integration complete and the hostile UX is them forcing you to open the app and manually trigger the sync rather than running the sync as a listener or during background refresh . They could even add a "sync all" button but instead they force you to sync dozens of activities (my activities tend to be short + mixed). I recommend getting ready for on device for your app – all apps are heading toward on-device for data & even model training.
  - folli 4y ago
    I find that a bit hard to believe for the more established device makers (e.g. Garmin, Polar, Suunto). Their device is a watch, if I want to look at analytics, I will need to move the data off to the cloud, I don't want to look at graphs and maps on a half-inch watchface. Apple is a special case, because they offer a tightly closed ecosystem with watches, phones, laptops...

bluecalm 4y ago

I love Strava. It's a shitty app. It's missing many simple features. It doesn't even do GPS reading right (segments are often cut out extended at the end/beginning of the activity). It does segment matching incorrectly (matches to the first recorded activity of the segment creator instead of matching to averaged matched runs). Route creator is terrible. You can't even change the place the circular route starts at. There are many more little quirks, some straight up terrible programming and failure to implement obvious cool features. It's great only because of massive community. Heatmaps (the killer feature besides segments), ability to see what routes other people ride, segments. Those are simple uses of content the users provide which makes it great and let you discover routes, meet people and have a little competition. If we had some kind of way to export the data to another project and wouldn't need to go through the minefield of patents then a leaner start up could easily take its place. Maybe it's not a billion dollar niche yet but a few hundred million market for a team of a few good programmers could be good enough to give it a shot.

truthwhisperer 4y ago

[dead]

unglaublich 4y ago

They want ROI for their recent $150M raise…

jeffbee 4y ago

Not seeing a lot of rational discourse here in the thread. The price of Strava has been in continual monotonic decline in real dollar terms. A 35% price increase across the board, if that is the weighted average, would just bring them up to 2009-2023 chained inflation.

rpep 4y ago
People are annoyed because the competitors have got a lot better and because Strava hasn’t improved over that period, in many ways it’s got more annoying to use.

scott_w 4y ago

I’m not a Strava subscriber (I prefer TrainingPeaks for that) but wow, this is a poor way to communicate price increases. Most people can deal with prices increasing. What they can’t deal with is a total lack of communication about that increase. If Strava don’t know what they’re going to charge then they shouldn’t communicate until they can put that number in front of customers. The alternative is… this!

marcocampana 4y ago

mmm so entry https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34373206 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34373206 was merged into this one because it was a duplicate. Thing is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34373206 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34373206 was #1 on the homepage and the merge with this made it disappear from the HN homepage. Was this intentional?

francisofascii 4y ago

Kinda was waiting for this to happen. Overall I have been happy being a Strava subscriber, but great web app experiences never last. Eventually quality suffers, Ads get crazy, or prices go way up.

knaik94 4y ago

@Dang I am confused, was this merged? The Dcrainmaker article is more informative and discusses more nuances. https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2023/01/strava-raises-prices-doubling.html https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2023/01/strava-raises-prices-dou...

thebigspacefuck 4y ago

Not many of my friends use it regularly but it’s sometimes fun to look them up and see how fast they are. A couple of them have PRs where Strava must have screwed up because it says they ran a 3:44 mile or something. I run a PR at a race and Strava shorts me 0.01 miles so my PR isn’t on it. It’s hard to take it too seriously. I’ll just train on my own and keep track of PRs on my own, may use the free features from time to time.

nsteel 4y ago

I think Strava need to do a better job monetizing their Api. API consumers (other websites) should be charged and maybe even move integration support as a premium feature. They need to cash in on the fact that everyone is using them as a fitness platform aggregation service.