Ray highlighted the inconsistencies in fee bumps, which I did not see noted elsewhere.
I looked at a few accounts (with the help of account owners) thinking that fee increases have something to do with age of account, or type of account, or how payments made (through iTunes, or directly), but in a small sample set I came to the same conclusion he did: opaque and random.

Bicycling also noted this hidden (?) increase in subscription.
https://www.bicycling.com/...ffs-price-increases/

And the same was raised on Reddit a few weeks back.
https://www.reddit.com/...scription_cost_hike/

N=1: my annual fee did not go up and will not go up when it renews. For the cost of one pint of domestic beer per month, I feel it's a good value (and now you know my thoughts on Strava and also dry January).

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no sponsors | no races | nothing to see here

you have to check after 2/2/23 if you are a US account holder. Mine still says 59.. but lets see on 2/3/23 if it still says 59?

Just checked - mine says $79.99 for renewal

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Blog: http://262toboylstonstreet.blogspot.com/
https://twitter.com/NateThomasTri
Coaching: https://bybtricoaching.com/ - accepting athletes for 2023

Same here and still showing it it will renew for 59 in July.

This mess makes me really appreciate how Nate handled the TrainerRoad increase.

Mr. Maker is a stern but fair reviewer, and that makes this assessment pretty damning:


No one knows the ins/outs of this business better than Ray.

For me - full disclosure - I'm still using the Free Strava subscription - https://www.strava.com/athletes/21488408 . The advanced features of paid version really do nothing for me. They keep pushing the Training features, but I get all of that and more from my Polar Flow Account. I lost the yearly summary data ( that now only comes with a paid account), and the ability to brag about that - but trust me, my yearly numbers are not worth bragging about! :-)

I noticed that over the past month I was getting hit up FREQUENTLY to sign up for the paid version of Strava with some generous offers!

I'm a bit flabbergasted regarding the ability for Strava to get partnerships with key brands. I see great opportunities with things like "Challenges". There are some things going on on that front - but it seems VERY limited. If you have a paid subscription do you have more and better access and deals to the monthly "Challenges"? I would have though this a no-brainer for brands to get involved.

Like most Social Media - I enjoy the social interaction, with other athletes commenting on their rides, xc-skiing or activities, and them commenting on mine! FWIW - A recent report found that giving/receiving Kudos was a helpful motivator https://runningmagazine.ca/...6GOVj7PmL02UyqZhfF9g

In January exercise, I go through everything that we as a household have a subscription to - and cancel the ones that I feel we are just not getting value from. For now anyway, Strava is still not something that I see myself paying, according to Ray's article $100 CAN/year for. Just being honest!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Why do y'all keep buying premium?

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

 
>>> Why do y'all keep buying premium?

i use private segments to analyze and plan intervals.

Wow, thanks for the link. Two things jump out at me:

1. The blatant disrespect for the subscriber. Intentionally waiting to communicate a price increase only shortly before an automatic renewal is a calculated effort to screw your customer. There's literally no other way that can be perceived.

2. The whole value of the app is based upon the large numbers of people that use it, ride the routes and populate it. While it's perfectly reasonable to raise pricing, a non-gradual increase will likely reduce membership, which reduces enjoyment and utility for the membership as a whole.

Slowman may bump up the price of the already outrageous ST premium accounts around here!!!

Don't go giving the new owners any bad ideas !

I am not renewing and will go with the free account starting in September when my membership expires . I just don’t see the value for what they are charging. I will use the savings to pay for the increase in TrainerRoad which brings allot of value.

Stun the customers with C-suite business bro babble language: "...we are consistently investing in the value of our subscription experience to deliver a best-in-class digital experience...giving you a unique experience for a holistic view of your active lifestyle"

Not sure Strava actually makes any money so they may be trying to keep things going until someone buys them out. Garmin would be the most logical, but given the launch of the Apple Watch Ultra, maybe Apple?

I pay for Premium not excited to pay more, but I use Strava way more than anything else. I did cancel Zwift finally after being in to since the Beta.

Sounds like ESPN, Disney+, Netflix etc should take notes on how to do this...also noticed my anti-virus subscription was 250 bucks on renewal and was like wtf...erstwhile McAfee is selling the same package for 90 bucks. So Wondering wtf.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

I’ve been a Strava free member since 2013. I have never seen a need to pay for any of the features they offer beyond the paywall.

-Route building is all done in garmin, free and connects to my device for turn by turn
-Strava leaderboards are all garbage fake activities anyway so why do I care if I’m x number out of thousands. Same for challenges
-local legend isn’t interesting to me as I enjoy doing new routes each time and not the same run consistently. Same goes for the analysis of if I’m getting faster on a route
-training log is free in garmin
-heart rate analysis and workout analysis free in garmin
- heat maps are free on various websites

It feels like it’s burning money to subscribe. They once got me on a deal for like $50/yr and two days later I returned it and got my money back.

The only thing I could see is people like the concept of social media Strava and don’t mind throwing them a few bucks as charity/thanks

This was a good reminder to cancel my premium subscription as well. No much utility over the basic account, although I will say that my greatest Strava accomplishment was a few years ago when I was able to use the FlyBys feature to identify a cyclist who had assaulted someone on a bike trail in Virginia. The whole incident garnered some broad attention and the police department made sure to take full credit for it! haha

https://slate.com/...assault-suspect.html

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https://www.slowtwitch.com/...ge_Hunter__7863.html

pretty much exactly the same for me. to the extent that i "analyze" at all, i do that through garmin connect. i'm indifferent to the paid social aspects like leaderboards etc., and really can't see wanting to pay for them.

i do pay for zwift. originally that was a leap for me, because i'm a cheapskate. i'm especially a cheapskate about subscriptions, which i generally avoid like the plague. (i'm still on a prepaid phone, for what it's worth.) but with zwift i see the value and enjoy it - it's made riding indoor much easier and more engaging. with strava it's mostly convenience - i occasionally need to get routes from people i ride with, and i get a bit of a kick out of seeing what some friends are up to.

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____________________________________
https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

track chain miles and other parts on the bike. Shoe miles.. Training intervals. Group ride meetups.... and KOMs.

they really need to work out what niche they are looking to fill.
i have garmin and training peaks, both of which i pay for in one way or another, plus any number of free tools available. any one of these (even free TP) gives me better training analysis than strava does so why do i want to pay for strava to develop their training analysis? maybe return to the days of being able to choose what premium features you get?

interesting parallel to the outside/CT thread - many companies are trying to increase their revenue and in doing so risking losing it all

Tracking chain miles and parts as well as shoes is on the free version

Training intervals - intervals.icu or garmin if you have one

Group ride social stuff is free

Kom is the only thing on your list that isn’t free to see the whole leaderboard

I can track my shoes and chains on Garmin...

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Varying prices for countries, I understand for UK since exchange rate. But for variance on users, it would be smart if them going by equipment type. If you can afford $250 shoes that last ,100mi, you can afford to pay higher premium.

Can I afford it? Probably. But there is nothing from Strava that I can't get from Garmin connect except for the Strava KOM leaderboard and route history. The rest of the analysis they do isn't world beating and you can get value out of just your app for your watch.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

This x2

I just hope that Garmin can stave off the temptation of going to a subscription model either for their watches or Connect.

i wouldn't necessarily be opposed to a garmin subscription model. i have both a garmin watch and a garmin bike computer. as such, i am effectively paying twice for the platform aspects. if they were to substantially drop prices for the devices - charge for the hardware only - and then fund the platform from subscription then i should theoretically actually save money. of course the more likely approach would be to have the subscription on top of device prices and regardless as an existing garmin owner i would not initially expect to pay any more but perhaps when buying a new device at a cheaper price i would understand having an ongoing subscription charge on top of that. i don't think you can reasonably sell a device which is reliant on a charged platform to perform its basic function though. the charged services must be on top of the standard device features. some garmin watches are quite standalone, some (particularly the lower end ones) are quite reliant on connect to process data for them.

its all about how you position the charges and communicate them. strava have done this appallingly badly so will likely suffer for it (its made me reconsider my premium subscription)

I agree with both of you - what you get out of paying has no value

i just purchased a new bike computer. Have been using a Garmin of some sort or other to track all my cycling and running for about 12 years; along with Garmin connect as my log. When i needed to replace my bike computer about a month ago i thought about getting a hammerhead karoo 2 .......but am too invested in the garmin universe to change - at least when it is a close call on which computer to get. ....and that is what i think the value in Garmin Connect is to Garmin. It has to keep customers and drive repeat sales.

i do also have a Strava subscription (coming to end of year 1 in a few months). if nothing else the price increase will make me check what i can do with a paid subscription v free.

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And the question remains. where were you.

If you're using it for a tracking/analysis platform there's little reason to subscribe to anything other than Trainingpeaks. You can upload from any device via their free platforms (Garmin still has to go through the free version of Connect, but uploads automatically from Connect to TP).

The product that Strava provides for their premium subscription simply does not add up to their asking price. It's innovative features are segment competitions and personal heatmaps. The actual training analysis on Strava is rudimentary.

It's been said before but it's worth repeating. Strava is a social network first and a training tool second. The average person does not exercise at all, and the average Strava user is putting in 3-5hrs/week. Their premium subscription, wisely, is tailored towards this athlete.

I like their recovery app that comes free with paid subscription. It provides pretty good PT type of exercises. It also has decent core/flexibility training routines.
Can I do Strava stuff using other apps? Yep. Is $60/year a reasonable enough price to have everything handled in one app? My time is valuable, so for me the answer is yes.

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Next races on the schedule: none at the moment

i roughly agree. i'm even happy to some extent to pay just to support the stuff you don't have to pay for (given that they don't have ads in the conventional and intrusive sense). however i am likely to change my mind if the price goes up much which is why i can see this backfiring on strava badly as they tip people over their willingness to pay and premium subscription numbers nosedive, potentially actually reducing total revenue

It flatly is NOT worth $99/yr. At $79 it is questionable. $59, ok.

I will likely not renew and do Trainingpeaks only.

Chasing segments may be fun but I found often a wasted training ride. Also heatmaps is nice but….lemmings will also follow each other off the cliff! How many times I rode something that is “hot” to realize it is shit. Nowadays I use Google streetview, ncdot road volume map, and will detour a mile or two driving home to check out part of a route.

That's fair. I could argue that such routines are available for free online with a short Google search. But the great point you said is "my time is valuable". It's a tricky calculation for Strava as to how their users value their time.

Sidebar-Is Strava looking to IPO? I see potential on their platform for ad revenue, but their current subscription model doesnt make sense as a tech sector company unless their operating cost is near zero. The potential user base just isn't that big.

Well, TP or any of the myriad free and subscription services which can give you good metrics.

If there’s one thing you don’t do as a fitness company, it’s piss Ray off. He’s got more influence than just about anyone else in the industry. It will be interesting to see Strava’s response in the coming weeks and months.

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blog

I subscribe because I somewhat like the features but also because I like Strava in general and I'd like them to stay in business

The price point is still below any sort of pain threshold but they should certainly be clear and rational on increases

I don’t use any of the tools outside of looking at segments for power, time and heart rate, and I wonder if it’s worth the $11.99 a month (it isn’t), but I can’t get the data without it. I wish there was a lite version.

my opinion on Strava: they failed in create a business model to make profit from the fantastic website/social network. It seems that instead of create content to worth pay premium subscription, they removed free content. It has no sense that you can see some information in the web that are only available in the app for premium (for example).

For example: intervals.icu create the exact content that integrated into strava would be a premium worth content. Or Veloviewer.com content. But they loose those trains.

GoldenCheetah... and it's free.

Yeah, I'm kind of in disbelief by their dismissive responses to him. I can only imagine whoever he was dealing with in PR/customer support didn't fully grasp who they were interacting with and that person is in hot water back at corporate now. But, that too is indefensible. If you are in PR in this industry you should something know thorough is coming when dcrainmaker emails so you bend over backwards to accommodate.

Same here. I use the recovery app several times a week. It has paid for itself many times by eliminating PT visits just to do some exercises.

It seems to me they almost felt that folks on the interwebs wouldn't talk to each other....or rather they were counting on it. Seems to be working well for them.

Is strava profitable? I haven't been following for years.

I had a free trial of the premium and never went for it. I think most of my friends who used it were free members and only post their workouts for friends to see.I had wko3-5 and training peaks for workouts. For the advanced metrics - my garmin, tp, and wko did all of that. To us, it was a site where we did not want to annoy facebook friends.

I've been a paying Strava user since 2012. There isn't THAT much with the premium subscription that I utilize. For me, $59/year wasn't that big of a deal to support a community that pretty much all of my friends use and interact on. I use TP for actual training analysis.

What kills me is the lack of communication to current subscribers and not gradually increasing prices at some point over 10 years vs "guess what...we're raising the price $20". Heck, I renew in March and nothing has been communicated to me. My renewal is still showing $59. I know that will reflect $79 once I get within 30 days of renewal.

I totally understand raising subscription prices...it's a business after all. However, you would think during a period of 10 years that they might have thought about raising the price at least a little bit. Had the cost gone up $3 this year, I don't think most people would have cared (or noticed).

Will I still pay $79 to subscribe...probably. I hope this ordeal is a good lesson to their management about running a subscription business.

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"Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps"
Blog = http://extrememomentum.com|Photos = http://wheelgoodphotos.com

Overall I have been giving Strava the benefit of the doubt for a few years now, but given how they seem to think their customers are cash cows without letting their customers have proper price increase information, I'm done paying for it - at least for now.

Yes, I cancelled. We'll never know if I'd have paid $80 a year for Strava.

I won't send my money to a company that treats their paying customers in this way.

I was trying to read up on how Strava actually intends to becom profitable, and this guy has a pretty great analysis. Most alarmingly, these numbers from 2020:



Where Lapsed users are completely inactive, casual is 1-2 activities/wk and athlete is >2 activities/week. I can't imagine that many people go on Strava unless they have posted their own workout, so you're looking at a daily userbase of around 4 million people. That's a shockingly small global share for a social media network. Even the much maligned Truth dot com claims 2 reportedly has active users.

https://uxdesign.cc/...plained-456fa22b0d71

Wow!

This kind of answers the query I had earlier - of how I was flabbergasted that Strava was unable to sell more partnerships/sponsorships for the app. The easiest way seemed to be via the monthly Challenges. I'm surprised more brands are not in on this sponsoring these. It's a VERY limited number that do. But if the numbers are that "small", Strava is probably having difficulty selling these, and brands are probably asking themselves are these worth it!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

This is interesting. What is the market for strava? It's people who care, and that have enough money to waste (arbitrary 50k after tax income). How many people on earth have enough money to waste on strava? That would be around 100-150 million. How many of these exercise daily? 5 to 7.5 million. How many care about strava premium features?

I don't think there will ever be a huge market for paying strava users.

I pay for Strava because there is this little asshole in my area that keeps taking my KOMs by single digit seconds and I must always be aware of him and continually beat him

Uh-oh!

Quite interesting. It really has a tiny user base.

They’re trying everything to make it more mainstream but as everyone in this thread has been saying, it doesn’t seem they really have a niche that isn’t covered or that they can gain value from. It’s just not really that kind of product, I think.

I do have a paid subscription but it’s purely to get into rabbit holes of looking at random people’s training data and having full access to segment viewing requires a subscription. I play around with it when I’m bored. I don’t think the average user is like that though. The training insights aren’t really why people use or would come to the app either.

It maybe has a tiny user base. Simple extrapolation over an estimate of 2015 users, which itself was a pretty crude method of estimating users using assigned user # is not something I'd put a ton of weight in for a variety of reasons.

if we take the estimates as fact, some 50M people have had enough interest to sign up at one point or another - thats not a small market. strava's problem is that 85% of those people have not kept using even the free version. i wonder how much that has changed since they restricted segment detail access?

they're going more and more for an approach of small numbers paying more, whereas most social platforms (which is where strava has value that nothing else does nearly so well, not training analysis) are free so as to maximise numbers which is necessary for social aspects. who is going to be interested in strava if none of their friends are on it anymore and the leader boards are meaningless since you're only competing against 5 other people in your area?

getting the whole world on board for free and monetisation through sponsored challenges and ads (plus maybe selling heatmap type data to roading authorities etc) seems like the proven approach but what do i know...

As someone who makes just over 50k *before* taxes, all I'd have to do to make up the price increase is clock out 1 minute later 1 day each week. Most people I know "waste" far more than $79 a year on lots of things, even those who make well under 50k...

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"I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 10, and I don't know why!"

But you can do that all for free! I get notified anytime one of my KOM or local legend segments are taken. So if that’s all you use it for save some money!

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Twitter - Instagram

See, this is the problem though. Is it actually providing you with $79/year worth in return? Opportunity cost. Where could you have spent that $79 otherwise? I doesn't matter a lick if you CAN do something daily to afford Strava. It matters if you get your $79 in value, or could use it more wisely elsewhere.

If someone is a local rider just having fun with it, sure. But a person more aligned with a Trainingpeaks account for competition, it's likely just a little novelty item. Maybe someone is on the fence about Zwift. Zwift is $15/mo. Forgoing Strava premium might get that person training a LOT more come off season. It would get them 5 months of Zwift.

5 months of Zwift at $75 >>>>> 1 year of Strava at $79. IMO. I'd make that call easy.

If someone did month to month Strava, no idea why, that makes the value proposition versus Zwift absolutely deplorable.

Er....your math is wrong. $50k per year is $25 / hr...or $0.50 per minute. So, that's $2-2.50 per month. A little more than 1/3rd of the annual cost prorated by month. So, you really need to stay 3 minutes later one day a week (or 1 minute 3 days a week...or 45 seconds EVERY.SINGLE.DAY...at 6:08-6:09 is the "TrainingPeaks Minute", 6:09-6:10 is "the Strava Minute").

However, time and money aren't infinite resources, so you can't just continually stay "1 minute later" every time you want something. Further, that are a LOT of people who are paid a fixed salary, and are not paid by the hour. At some point, you simply hae to decide do you want A (stravaPro) or B (something else...food, electricity, TrainingPeaks, a Garmin watch, etc)?

I don't know what income level has to do with this, anyway? Regardless of my income level, StravaPro simply has no value. I enjoy the social aspect of it. But I don't pay for social media, period. Segments were mildly entertaining (but mostly as a self-measure, not as a "I can beat random internet guy" measure)...now that Garmin has segments, I don't care about Strava for that. Their training metrics are deeply flawed (and woefully limited), and they have no training planning support to speak of in any "serious" sense.

I would pay for Garmin Connect 1000 times before I'd pay for Strava. Not because they have duplicated some Strava features, but for everything else they have that Strava simply does not---and, they don't have the motivation (or resources) to implement. I'm sure I could find most of my Strava friends on GC, and get my athlete social fix that way, if Strava ever went full pay-wall.

I like the social aspect and segments on Strava, and combined with the deeper analysis possible with Strava Sauce, I've been perfectly happy with the annual subscription. And I'm just pointing out that a $20 increase is pretty insignificant, at least for me. I can see where someone who is just scraping by needs to count every penny and has to make some decisions, but the post I responded to implied that someone would need to earn even more than I do in order to afford Strava...

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"I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 10, and I don't know why!"

My math was on. I said to make up the cost of the price increase, not the total cost, would require me to work 1 extra minute a week. A $20 increase in the annual rate would be about 38 cents a week. A little less than I make in 1 minute. Or I could make up the difference by buying 1 less 6" tuna sub every 4th month. Spread out over the year, $20 is a rounding error, something I'd never actually notice. Its not like I'm having to choose between having Strava vs paying the rent.



Because the post I responded to implied that someone would need to make significantly more than I do to be able to afford Strava...

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"I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 10, and I don't know why!"

Got it. Fair enough.

That said, I would still argue that the assessment should be against the total value of the new price. You value it, that's fine. I do not.




Nevertheless, the same prioritization question is always at play. As noted previously, I think there are ways to spend $80 / year on a training with a much better value-return.

But, to each their own. The point is that Strava doesn't provide enough value to the general training public to trip the "I'll add another $80 subscription to my budget" threshold. For some, yes....for a lot, no.

Its almost like a startup learning curve item even though Strava has been around for 10 years. I have been on the side of pricing decision making for S+P 500 companies, and the basic strategy has always been to try to get a 2-3% annual price increase with discretion by market competition and product life cycle mix.

In a non inflationary cheap money customer grab environment companies like Strava didn't raise prices. But clearly the stuff is hitting the fan and Strava has chosen to deal with this in a very abrubt and foolish way.

I will probably pay it because I will stop my training peaks membership this year - Strava premium + Trainerroad covers the basics of the training diary stuff. I do like the heatmaps in strava, they are great for discovering new trails, routes, and roads. So for me I will pare down my training app subscriptions.

Because I want to support the company. Because I like a couple of the premium features, although, I'd pay $59/year for the public edition. I was surprised, I thought they'd be charging $10/mo or so ($120/year) years ago. No idea why they didn't.

-Eric

I suspect ChatGPT

Or MadLibs

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

The "How to Boil a frog" approach. Hence, my statement that one should always evaluate the full-price, not the price-increment.

I would think that a more reasonable strategy for Strava would be a larger (but still gradual) annual increase. But, at a minimum....with clear, consistent messaging. Not this CF.

I'm not an expert but I would think a company wants to increases prices as much as it can without having public backlash hit some sort of virality threshold. Little increase every year may see a few people leave, but a mass exodus from a poorly managed price spike is a death knell.

I dont know how its the Garmin route builder in the States, but here in Spain is really bad compared to Strava. it doesnt recommend proper routes, often it throws you into gravel or dirt or even trail paths, its clunky, and editing already existing routes is awful. I actually pay 1 month every once in a while on Strava to create a whole lot of routes, because I tried the one in Garmin and relying on it is a recipe for disaster :/

That's one approach to business: craftiness nad opaqueness.

Though I heard an NPR Marketplace episode where they interviewed several business owners who said that they had to significantly raise prices due to inflation and pandemic-related supply chain issues. And they said that when they transparently informed their customers of the price increase and the reasons why, they were suprised to see no significant loss of business. Treat people with respect, and they're likely to respond in-kind. This is just anecdotal evidence. I don't know which method might be more effective. But certainly honesty and transparency is another option to the "boil the frog" method. And I'd think less likely to go "viral."

Especially in a userbase like Strava's, which is largely folks with a fair amount of disposable income. It's easy to play Monday Morning Quarterback, but it seems so obvious to just email all premium users about the price increase more than a few days before automatic renewal. It makes me wonder if their hand was forced by their investors.

I'm in the pricing business. It's all about your addressable market's willingness to pay. There are markets that will follow because they have no choice, and other markets because they're not that sensitive to these specifics in the first place. Strava is largely in the later category. They are doing the right move for them given the market they operate in.

https://dumbrunner.com/...e-we-want-more-money

"Late in 2022, Strava’s leadership team met in one of our tastefully appointed meeting rooms. We had a bunch of papers with rows and columns of data. We discussed how much money the company had, and how much money we wish the company had.

"We quickly realized that the former number was significantly smaller than the latter number. And so we decided to get more money from you, our customers.

"So, simply put: We want more money. We apologize if that wasn’t clear in our initial communications."

****

https://dumbrunner.com/...ready-back-on-strava

"Mark Renton, 31, was one of many cyclists and runners who reacted with surprise, confusion, and anger last week when they learned Strava was increasing its prices. In a tweet dated January 12, he tagged Strava and announced, 'Canceling my monthly subscription now, this is bullshit. #strava #stravapriceincrease'; yesterday, Renton quietly reactivated his account, apparently having agreed to pay the new, higher rates.

"'It’s still bullshit,' Renton told Dumb Runner in a phone interview, referring to the price hike. But I think I made my point.'"

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

Where there's room for entertainment and criticism through satire: Mark will find it. :)

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no sponsors | no races | nothing to see here

I tend to find strava's does the same for me. Ride with GPS is far superior IMO.

Mark Renton: Dumb Runner, indeed.

I don't think that point means what he thinks it means.

... And if he can't find it, he'll take it from someone who did

< allegedly >

https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...ost=7758338#p7758338

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

This is the same company that said your training data isn’t yours it’s ours since you uploaded it. Not exactly surprised with how they’re acting here.

Interesting to see that they acquired an outdoor mapping company today. Directional, it feels like they're focusing a lot more on the content/general outdoors market than their initial cyclist focus. Terms weren't disclosed so it's possible it was all (or mostly) stock.

I was wondering how "Supply Chain Issues" could come into play, in order to justify a price increase for something that really has no physical footprint, but I guess if there is more data to store [regardless of who it belongs to], you need more servers, so ...

It's still bullshit, though

Disclosure - I only use Strava to map our family hikes & bike rides, as D'Wife is always asking "How far did we go?" I could just as easily use "MapMyWhatever" but Strava's trail maps work better for us

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

If they have on-prem servers they are morons.

Servers run on electricity and market rates per KWH have risen significantly in the past year. I have no clue if they have their own data center or not but if they have a negotiated lease with a colocation data center company, their rate could have gone up significantly and they decided to immediately pass it on.

I think it depends what you’re running it off of. Our electric hasn’t gone up noticeably but our NG prices have. I doubt it’s that.

My assumption is the math hasn’t worked for awhile they were banking on user growth, but when that didn’t occur they had to switch the model to try increased pricing to cover costs.

All of that is irrelevant though this isn’t a pricing problem. If you don’t raise prices for 10 years and then decide you need to raise them most users won’t have a problem. If you decide to raise prices with no transparency, then when called out keep the no transparency, then apologize and also not give any transparency. This is where you end up.

The more and more I listen to executives talk the more and more I feel they should just shut up and let an average person in their company explain what they are doing. Your average employee is going to go yeah guys sorry, we need to keep Strava around and we have to raise prices to do it. Here is the price increases, it’s the best logic we can come up with and hopefully we won’t need to do it again anytime soon. If they said that and published a price list with some resemblance of logic they would have zero issues.

We had one of the executives in our company when asked about pay increases due to inflation, go “well we didn’t decrease salaries during the pandemic and we can’t just raise them for inflation. I about put my head through my desk. There were 100 different ways to say that which werent alienating to 95 percent of employees and have the same answer.

Fucking a-hole higher ups at places with no freaking clue. "Oh, why is our attrition SO bad and why do we suddenly have to make all these big offers to get people to accept the roles we are back filling from attrition?" Durrr durrr durrrrr. Fucking idiots.

We lost a lot of good folks the past couple years from that "logic".

That's why I'm glad to be at home & on Zoom - I can turn my camera off for a second and just shake my fucking head #facepalm LOL

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

Strava really screwed up with how they communicated their price increase and just how they handled it overall. Obfuscating prices is something Comcast does. You don't want to be like Comcast.

I also agree with those who say that Strava probably isn't worth the money. Personally, as a cyclist, I like to see my history on a given segment. You cannot see this without a paid subscription. As a runner, I don't pay much attention to segments unless I'm trying to get the CR, but I like to see my history on a given "course." I run the same runs over and over again, and it's nice to see how my pace has changed with time. I like to be able to see pace and average HR for a given run all lined up with a nice graph. Worth $100 / year? No.

Even though it's not worth the money, I sometimes subscribe anyway because I love Strava and I don't want them to go out of business and I can comfortably afford it. Overall, I think Strava is wonderful. My elderly parents are on Strava, and I can see from Strava that they've gone on their daily walk and are doing OK. It's a daily way to connect with some friends who don't live nearby in a way that doesn't require any extra "work" from either of us. Exercise is a big part of my life, and Strava reflects that.

But when I want to cut costs, Strava is always on the chopping block.

Strava's second problem is that most people are lazy and don't actually exercise. Unlike a gym membership (which makes you feel like you *might* exercise in the future), there's no reason to keep Strava if you don't exercise. I fear they'll go out of business or collapse in some other way. So I'm cheering for them to figure things out.

Just pointing out that research indicates that social accountability is a good method of getting people to stick with exercise. And Strava is excellent for getting positive feedback for gettings workouts did. Much better than other social media sites in this regard because it's specialized, e.g. you just annoy people if you post about your run every day on Facebook. But it's cool on Strava.

The challenges are kind of fun, and can also be good in getting people to stick with a plan.

Strava's problem though is that both of these things are totally free on Strava. A good thing. I appreciate that Strava exposes a massive amount of utility for free*. I'm fine with all the Strava-hate in this thread (and I contributed some). But we shouldn't forget the core idea is amazing. and the initial implementation was brilliant. In my opinion.

* Yes, I now sponsor/ad-supported sites are not strictly-speaking, "free."

Edit: Another thing I love about Strava is their ad-support is classy. They don't crap up your feed with clickbait. There are relevant companies presented in an unobtrusive way. I hope they hold the line on this.

Nah, it's still annoying


Plus, I then have to give Kudos to almost dozen or so people I follow

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

Mr. Maker posts an update here, and it's still not a great look for Strava:

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/...pricing-country.html

Sick burn at the end there Ray, well done, 👏

Strava: Decoded

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CoOIaqKNU86/

"'Post-Lunch Run - we know you had to stop a few times'
"'Morning Run - this is for people who actually use Strava'"

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin