strava free vs paid feature set changes...

[Bostic]

Strava offered too much for too little for too long. Subscriptions are here to stay. I hate them but love them and companies are not going to change that consistent revenue model. Remember when they first came out and they limited you to 5 ride uploads *total* before a paywall? They had to change that or there is no way the company would have ever grown in 2009/10.

Before using Strava I used bikejournal. Manually entering in numbers in fields and saving versus uploading automatically via usb from a Garmin to Strava. It's a no brainer why I stopped using bikejournal.

Stand alone little apps for mobile I will not pay a subscription. Things that impact me at a big level such as Office 365, iCloud storage, Xbox Live I pay the money.

One particular company that basically has subscription marketed differently is VMware. I need to use their Fusion for Mac and Workstation for Windows virtualization products and they charge yearly for the new version. If you don't fork over money then there is a good chance that latest version of MacOS or Windows 10 is not going to work properly. Or you will miss out on other improvements in the product.

[tctyres]

Originally Posted by Keith A

tctyres -- I mistakenly thought the training log was still there since the link was still in the menu, but it shows you the log in the background with an invite to pay for this feature. I use this tool often

Right. Just a simple tool, but easy to see what you've done and when.

Originally Posted by benb

Software is really really expensive to develop once you start having a team & a corporate structure.

Thanks for all your insights in this thread. They are helpful to understand what is going on.

[fkelly]

I user Ride With GPS personally and coordinate a club area on it for my bike club here in the Albany, NY area. We have about 300 saved routes in our club area, probably using 12 to 20 "standardized" starting locations. Most of the routes have been thoroughly vetted so there is less chance of a wrong turn sending you off into Timbuktu. User can download the route to their Garmin or Smartphone where rwgps provides Android and IOS apps. That way you can get turn by turn directions (read aloud) as you ride.

The routing isn't perfect, but it's pretty good. I looked at Strava routing a few years back and it was terrible. The problem with routing is that all these apps just sent their users mouse clicks off to a routing data provider (I think Google) which then returns turn directions and text. There is no way that these relatively small companies could maintain routing databases by themselves.

For my own riding I put probably 50 to 100 segments (KOM's mostly) into rwgps. Mostly years ago. At this point I have 200+ attempts on some of the segments going back as far as 2012. I'm 73 years old now and not getting any faster but this lets me monitor my rate of decline. That's actually useful for lighting a fire under yourself. (Ha, a couple of weeks ago, I got what I called a double lantern rouge == my slowest time ever on two segments that I had over 100 attempts each on). That got me motivated a bit.

As backup I download my rides and keep summary data in a spreadsheet. There is no telling when one of these companies will go belly up.

I pay rwgps an annual fee (in $50 range with club discount) and have a free Strava account. On occasion I've compared results on similar segments (KOMS's) between them A lot of the same people on both. I can't compete with riders who are 40 years younger and 30 pounds lighter so mostly just compete with myself.

Benb makes good points in this thread about the industry. I've had good luck working with rwgps technicians over the years ... they are a small enough company to be responsive. I've learned that there are real limits to what they can do about routing because they are so dependent on routing data providers. And that's just the way it's going to be.

[FlashUNC]

Originally Posted by Toddykins

Ugh - I think I am due at least a little more credit than this in terms of sophistication. Of course, the most heavily ridden routes in dense urban areas may not yield 'good' riding.

Let's run through a hypothetical example. Let's say Joe Rider is going to Ovaro to ride the Zoncolan. He doesn't know much else about the area, but wants to fit in at least one additional climb. He turns on the heat map - boom, within ten seconds he is able to identify the switchbacks of Monte Crostis, within two minutes or so of scrolling he finds the Forcella di Lavardet.

Could he have found Monte Crostis by poring over a normal map? Sure, but it would have taken some time. Could he have found Forcella di Lavardet? Not without spending a lot of time poring over a map and other sources.

I have been fortunate to ride all over the world. I happen to enjoy spending hours cross-referencing strava, maps, google earth/satellite imagery, etc - but I have yet to come across a more powerful single tool than Strava's heat maps for identifying good riding. This works pretty much everywhere the world over at this point (just don't go stealing my KOM in Bhutan, ok?).

If you have a suggestion as to what would work better, I am all ears.

I've gotten more useful ride info out of talking to other riders here and other places than I'd get on Strava.

So, I dunno, how about online forums for starters?

[pasadena]

Originally Posted by FlashUNC

I've gotten more useful ride info out of talking to other riders here and other places than I'd get on Strava.

So, I dunno, how about online forums for starters?

[FlashUNC]

Originally Posted by pasadena

If the company's biggest selling feature after a decade in existence is a leaderboard for segments that have gotten people killed and a heat map software that's a privacy nightmare, and you've not managed to monetize any of this data, then maybe the company should be put out of its misery?

Invisible hand of Adam Smith and all that.

Fire sale to Garmin for pennies on the dollars in under 12 months.

[barnabyjones]

I'd subscribe for $1.99/month. I pay $9.99 for Spotify and that includes content (audio and Hulu) along with royalty payments, as tiny as they are. The amount of time I spend on Spotify is about five times greater than Strava. Although I'd rather ride my bike than listen to music.

[pasadena]

Originally Posted by barnabyjones

I'd subscribe for $1.99/month. I pay $9.99 for Spotify and that includes content (audio and Hulu) along with royalty payments, as tiny as they are. The amount of time I spend on Spotify is about five times greater than Strava. Although I'd rather ride my bike than listen to music.

You answered it yourself.

Cost per hour does not equate to value, especially when it comes to your hobbies, passion, and what matters.

[kiwisimon]

I just stopped Strava and Veloviewer. It was a nice distraction but I'm not a competitive cyclist, my ego is big enough and it also doesn't need any more bruising. Strava tells me nothing I really need to know. I have Garmin Training Center for comparisons and it is fine.

[tctyres]

Somehow, they made everything a lot less fun. It's really too bad.

[smontanaro]

I'm just a free user and see most things I'm interested in have disappeared behind the paywall.

One thing I've never found is how to see monthly mileage. I can only find weekly totals. Are monthly totals available anywhere in Strava?

[kytyree]

There is a rolling 4 week total on your profile. On that page is also a bar graph, you can toggle it to "monthly" or "weekly" for a total. You can then click on the bar graph to change months or weeks, or switch between time, distance, and elevation gain.

I've been paying for Strava for a while, I'll continue to do so and that's fine with me. I keep all my own totals in a spreadsheet, I do like looking at some of the training stuff on there but mostly I enjoy keeping up with various riders around the world and my friends who don't live near me. We could do something similar on other social media but I think it is nice to have the sports separated from the rest of that, at least for me.

[makoti]

Originally Posted by kiwisimon

I just stopped Strava and Veloviewer. It was a nice distraction but I'm not a competitive cyclist, my ego is big enough and it also doesn't need any more bruising. Strava tells me nothing I really need to know. I have Garmin Training Center for comparisons and it is fine.

If I could drop Stava & keep VV, I would. As it stands, I'll have to see how much info is taken out of VV now that the free version is so striped down

[FlashUNC]

I gotta say, Strava's made major mistakes in the last few years ignoring platform updates, screwing the pooch on user privacy, and generally alienating a loyal, committed fanbase, but man they sure have nailed the near daily emails asking me to pony up for Premium over the last week or so.

All of the ambiance of a political contribution email, none of the charm.

[unterhausen]

They must know I'm a hopeless case, no such emails