Strava puts popular “Year in Sport” recap behind an $80 paywall

Strava’s most viral feature is suddenly locked away.

See full article...

 

[jwbaker]

paywall ... paywall ... paywall ... enshittification

Garmin hasn't moved any formerly free features behind Connect+. Your rant is ridiculous.

 

[jwbaker]

The biggest benefit of Strava's subscription model is that it is still ad free. While I acknowledge that the collected data almost certainly feeds into someone's ad planning, I don't have to be bombarded by ads every time I log a ride/run/walk/whatever.

That said, RideWithGPS is nipping at their heels and if they don't start improving the overall experience, I'll join the group of "former premium users".

RideWithGPS doesn't scratch the itch of the only Strava premium feature I actually find useful, which is partly fed by the larger user base. I like to benchmark my rides against the other Strava users. Until another service has a substantial population of users, they won't be able to offer that. Garmin certainly doesn't. I created a segment on Garmin Connect that duplicates one from Strava and on Garmin Connect it only gathered 90 rides in a year vs 1000s of rides on Strava. It's a network effect.

 

[jwbaker]

WTF is it lately with people saying that if something hasn't happened, it's never going to happen?

Nobody is saying that in this discussion. Please try to read more closely. "Slippery Slope" is an informal logical fallacy. If you perceive that objection to this fallacy is spreading, that suggests that clear, logical rhetoric is growing, which is a good thing.

Garmin has never taken a feature away from fitness products and placed them behind a subscription, so a slippery slope argument is improper.

 

[jwbaker]

Definitely a case of to each their own.

I'm old and slow. The last thing in the world I want to do is compare my run times with other people.

Ha, it's worse than that because if you've been using Strava for many years it gives you a convenient graph of how much slower you are today vs. ten years ago on the same route. This is also behind the subscription fee so if you're picking up speed on the downslope of middle age I guess don't subscribe to Strava.