strava free vs paid feature set changes...
 

https://cyclingtips.com/2020/05/stra...nd-free-users/

i personally don't care much about the segments (i am a current and long-term subscriber), but do enjoy the service. hope they're doing (and will continue to do) ok, because i do find a lot of value in the mapping and social aspects.

I had summit. I let it expired. I cannot tell the difference from summit vs free. I like the free better as a result.

I'm ok with hiding other people's results behind a paywall, but it sounds like your own results will be hidden, as well. So you can't compare your own efforts? Does this mean the end of PRs for anyone who doesn't pay?

I'm a subscriber. Will continue to be. Hope this sets up Strava for a long, successful run.

I am a subscriber also and am very satisfied except they removed the bluetooth link to my heart rate strap. Now I have to use another device if I want to connect HR to the ride. I don't have or want a computer sitting on my bars, I find myself looking at them too much and I prefer as little clutter as possible.

Multi-year subscriber here. Didn't even bother to cancel when I couldn't ride a bike for a solid year. If you want all the features it's $60/year and that's a great deal for me considering how much time I spend on it.

Other option is they can make it completely free and hit everyone with an ad every other screen just like Instagram, and sell all your personal information to third parties for targeted marketing and god knows what else. Especially juicy with all that GPS data.

And if it really chafes your caboose, you can always just get off the internet and go ride your bike.

Yeah.. I fully agree.. I'm having a hard time understanding the person complaining about this change. I know people who work at STRAVA in SF. Small company and the lack of ads can't be understated.

If strava is that much of a necessity of a tool for folks, they should pony up the $60/yr.

I don't even know what Strava is for any more - once they locked down the privacy so hard you couldn't find anyone to "follow" them.. what is the point?

They never seemed to find a business model. Locking out leaderboards for segments and locking out 3rd party apps? Last gasp to stay in business before being sold off to Garmin?

The Chrome Extension (free) Elevate is superior to paid strava anyway. It takes your strava and make it better with graphs and more data.

This will no longer work, obviously. They are blocking integration with 44,000 apps/extensions effective immediately.

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2020/05/...-and-more.html

? I’ve never had any problems finding people on there. 🤷🏻*♂️

They may be older users.. by default the new privacy settings mean you cannot find them on leaderboards, fly-bys, etc. So even if you rode side-by-side with someone for 8 hours, you can go home and not be able to track them down to follow them.

Plenty of times I rode up the same hill with someone and thought "huh, I should follow that person" - which you basically can't do any more.

I don’t really care about competing for segments but sometimes it’s fun to see how you stack up. I’ll be unsyncing Strava as of today from my Garmin Connect acct as Strava doesn’t really add $60 worth of value to my life, especially when better mapping and performance tracking services exist.

Everything they're trying to push is done better by someone somewhere else. Route planning? Komoot. Training plan tracking? Uh, pick the list: Training Peaks, etc etc.

The leaderboard is THE reason Strava is Strava. Paywalling that is just moving the deck chairs around imo.

leaderboard is just depressing for me anyway. Around here, there are so many users I can't even be DFL. We stopped for a long snack break on a fairly remote gravel climb and were still in the top 2/3 of riders. I do find it mildly amusing that they keep track of my PR's on segments.