The change to Strava

Murf said:
As for heart rate tracking on the app, if you're not using a cycle head unit or a smartwatch for cycling and running you're probably not taking it seriously enough to be in Strava's target market anyway.
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You made some great points....

I have a garmin watch. But I want Strava to display my HR on my phone whilst I'm cycling. That really is all I want!

Yet for some bizarre reason they took a feature that always worked for me and got rid of it!
 
xdcx said:
I've seen this silly assumption in this thread a few times now.

HR, power, strava, data is absolutely nothing to do with nor a measure to determine how serious someone is about a sport. There are plenty of serious runners and cyclists out there who track no data what so ever.

On the other hand there are a lot of strong cyclists not using Strava because they don't see it as a thing "serious" cyclists need use. It's actually seen as a sign you are a "proper" cyclist if you do not use Strava...... Both viewpoints here, IMO, are absolutely daft.
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Sorry, I should have been clearer. What I meant was if you want to track your rides\runs, and make use of online services that provide analysis, then you should be considering a head unit\watch. I'm not implying you're not a serious cyclist if you don't use Strava, but if you're not seriously interested in data then Strava isn't really targeting you with their subscription model.

Hodders said:
You made some great points....

I have a garmin watch. But I want Strava to display my HR on my phone whilst I'm cycling. That really is all I want!

Yet for some bizarre reason they took a feature that always worked for me and got rid of it!
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I don't know anyone who uses their phone to track bike rides. I wouldn't want to strap a heavy £1k device to my handlebars. I imagine the battery consumption is horrendous anyway. Strava is assuming that those willing to pay a subscription for Strava, also buy head units. I'd guess they're probably right but I don't have access to the data they do. So maintaining HR connectivity on their mobile app is probably not cost effective.

Strava has never turned a profit, they have to cut back on opex and increase revenue. The steps they've taken seem a reasonable way to achieve that.
 
Murf said:
Sorry, I should have been clearer. What I meant was if you want to track your rides\runs, and make use of online services that provide analysis, then you should be considering a head unit\watch. I'm not implying you're not a serious cyclist if you don't use Strava, but if you're not seriously interested in data then Strava isn't really targeting you with their subscription model.
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Ahh yeah, all good man, I totally get/agree with you!
 
I have paid. It's a great product, but as most of the functions I use were free, it was too easy to continue on the free version. However, this was and is the wrong attitude. If we want to continue using and encouraging the development of great apps/products we, as the users, need to pay as if not they'll either have to go to a more advertising based product (ugh!) or sell to more scrupulous companies who will be solely concerned about profit and not user experience. It's the price of a pint/expensive coffee - although I appreciate you could end up over 10 monthly subscriptions which would start costing more serious cash.
 
I am not around to support devs on their endless quest of app development and subscription based products for features that i will never use.

I want to pay once and once only.
 
SPG said:
I am not around to support devs on their endless quest of app development and subscription based products for features that i will never use.

I want to pay once and once only.
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So.... you're happy to not use Strava as you don't want any of it's features? Or... you'd prefer to pay £50 once and nothing ever again? I'm not sure your point.

Devs can't just complete and app, throw it out there and move on, that's not how it works. Things change at a pretty rapid pace and they need to keep up. I don't really see why this would be for free. When you take your car for an MOT or service do you argue you shouldn't be paying for them to do this too? Then there's the many other running costs for a website and service that is this big. Again, why would that all be for free?
 
AndyCr15 said:
So.... you're happy to not use Strava as you don't want any of it's features? Or... you'd prefer to pay £50 once and nothing ever again? I'm not sure your point.

Devs can't just complete and app, throw it out there and move on, that's not how it works. Things change at a pretty rapid pace and they need to keep up. I don't really see why this would be for free. When you take your car for an MOT or service do you argue you shouldn't be paying for them to do this too? Then there's the many other running costs for a website and service that is this big. Again, why would that all be for free?
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My issue with Strava is they tend to offer less visibility of your data than other websites that use the Strava data does. The Strava app shows less data than the web version, on the face it simple new features seem to be marketed as some huge release.

If the product was really worth it we wouldn’t be having this debate I’d say. Spotify and Netflix and how many threads are there about them not been worth it are there on the internet.
 
You think if Netflix was free, then went paid only, there wouldn't be a massive discussion about it? And yes, there's lots of discussion about if it's worth it or not, just not an isolated thread about it as it's simply a pay or you don't I guess. :)

(Also, there is no 'it's worth it or not' final answer, that's not possible. It can be worth it for one person and not worth it for another. Most people in this thread are one side or the other, hence discussion about it)
 
AndyCr15 said:
You think if Netflix was free, then went paid only, there wouldn't be a massive discussion about it? And yes, there's lots of discussion about if it's worth it or not, just not an isolated thread about it as it's simply a pay or you don't I guess. :)

(Also, there is no 'it's worth it or not' final answer, that's not possible. It can be worth it for one person and not worth it for another. Most people in this thread are one side or the other, hence discussion about it)
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Sorry I didn’t mean to address you specifically in my response :) Spotify is (was?) free but people happily pay for it without a debate if it’s worth it. My point is, if you make something good enough then people will happily pay. If it’s not then people won’t, if Strava haven’t made a profit yet maybe there’s a reason for that.

My opinion on that is for the casual the free version is fine, for the more serious people there are better products out there for free or slightly more expensive. So where is Strava’s premium model meant to fit?
 
Jimbeam3678 said:
My point is, if you make something good enough then people will happily pay.
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I guess my point is, it is good enough and people will/do happily pay :)

Spotify is ad supported, Strava wasn't. I wouldn't say you can compare them really. The reason Strava perhaps weren't making enough was they were giving too much away free, so they changed. That doesn't mean it isn't a good product/service, it just means their model was set slightly wrong. I guess time will now tell if it's good enough, I'd be reasonably sure it is.
 
So where do you see it sitting ?Because I don’t see it myself.

Also I’m pretty sure Strava did sell anonymous data about cycle use in city centres a few years ago Manchester if I remember correctly, I could be wrong on that though.
 
Jimbeam3678 said:
So where do you see it sitting ?Because I don’t see it myself.
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How do you mean? Why do I use and pay for it?

Jimbeam3678 said:
Also I’m pretty sure Strava did sell anonymous data about cycle use in city centres a few years ago Manchester if I remember correctly
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I personally have no issue with this, but maybe this is a point for someone else?
 
To be fair, the rapid continuing dev stuff DOES make sense for most things. But related to Strava itself? I say no.
They literally sat on it for years upon years and all that happened was the removal of functionality.
The route planner was in beta for over 3 years. Now the new route planner is, yep, beta!
That's one example of live/paying users beta testing for them without no other option to use a full release/stable variant.

I agree it's a good product. It is worth money to those that make use of the features absolutely.
Have they done themselves any favours by leaving it as is in free state for 5 years before then deciding they want money for it? nah, not really.

I get both sides. It's worth money but I agree they should take flak.
 
I think the most recent changes have come about since the founders bought the company back from whichever VC bunch were running it. All the newest stuff has come after that. I suspect we may see more changes as we go on.

I wouldn't be surprised to see the phone/sensor option to be relaunched at some point, as they might now get chance to fix it.
 
xdcx said:
They literally sat on it for years upon years and all that happened was the removal of functionality.
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So we think they perhaps weren't paying devs for upkeep... and things started to not work and they just removed them... as they didn't have devs to fix them.... yes. Agreed. Hence, I say they should pay devs to maintain the software and we should be contributing towards that.

xdcx said:
Have they done themselves any favours by leaving it as is in free state for 5 years before then deciding they want money for it? nah, not really.
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As I said earlier, at least they made various improvements and then asked for money (well, changed what you needed to pay for) as opposed to how many will do it 'We'll make it better if you pay'.
 
@AndyCr15 - They changed the payment/sub structure a few years back to try and make more money which I presume would have been to pay their staff? They're a secretive company. Don't think they ever have given out their income or even userbase stats? So nobody will know how well that Summit sub thing worked out for them those years ago.

The fact they had devs to remove functionality and make minor changes these years as well as do the work for the new stuff now doesn't say to me they got rid of all their devs.

Agree'd on the point at least they added a few new things as incentive on the recent changes. I still stick by the whole beta labelled stuff though. The new route planner is a beta product which replaced the previous that was never out of beta. I think they should at least be at a state where they can at least finish something and commit to it being as such if they expect people to pay them. It seems these days testing in prod with no comms t paying users is normality.... see Zwift for that ****.
 
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xdcx said:
The fact they had devs to remove functionality and make minor changes these years as well as do the work for the new stuff now doesn't say to me they got rid of all their devs.
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No, but I as a very inexperienced dev could remove something. I probably couldn't fix it. Very different actions. Also, as discussed, they didn't do work on new stuff did they? Until recently. That was kind of people's issues with it I thought.

So - State 1 - cheap/almost no devs. No progression. Things removed.

State 2 - they spend some money, get some decent devs, start adding new features and then try and make a little more.
 
AndyCr15 said:
How do you mean? Why do I use and pay for it?

I personally have no issue with this, but maybe this is a point for someone else?
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I mean who do they see as their target audience? As I said previously casuals will use free version, serious athletes can find better and more detailed products for not much more or even free. So I’m saying I’m struggling to see what market they are aiming for ?

It was mentioned Strava didn’t advertise or sell data like Facebook etc, I was mentioning that they tried that and obviously failed.

They have a huge userbase which have the option of free or paid and they aren’t making money. Something is fundamentally wrong.
 
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