UKH

So it seems that you can't even view your own previous attempts on segments now, let alone your mates or anyone elses. Strava have made all leaderboards for segments subscription only. Is this the inevitable end for the free aspect of the service, and is it more than a little bit suspect that it comes at a time when millions more people are finding the joys and benefits of outdoor activities and looking for ways to capture their data and stats...

Either way...are you gonna subscribe or delete!?! 

Never subscribed. Never will.

Aye, I got the email this morning. It did feel like cash wrangling during an inappropriate time but I guess they will be feeling the pinch.

Currently it looks like I can see the same info as I could before but I haven't really explored it. 

I won't delete the app but I'm not too happy about subscribing with the state of the household income.

I'm not going to delete it, but I'm not rushing to subscribe, either.

"You buy a £3000 bicycle, look at your activities on a super expensive phone and won't pay a few quid a month for a relatively reliable and sociable exercise platform. Interestingly the runners have been far less offended by this manoeuvre so far". An interesting difference.

Totally valid.

I think it's the fact that rather than adding new features for subscribers, they're removing previously free features for non-subscribers that's rubbing me up! Other than leaderboards, I never have any engagement - all the training tools etc and intensity bar etc were things I just ignored. 

There was an interview with one of the founders yesterday on the GCN youtube channel - quite interesting. As a company, Strava has never made a profit. How long have they been in business? I think I've been using it since 2013 and I don't think I was anything close to an early adopter. They were also discussing how this is maybe the worse time to go to subscription because lots of people are losing their incomes, and lots of other internet based services like newspapers, but including UKC of course!, are begging for support. But they obviously need to get more subscribers.

I was thinking about it quite a lot last night, 4 quid a month doesn't sound too much but then when you see that's 47.99 for a year, well, at least for me, that's not something I'd spend without a second thought! But at the same time I've had 7 years of using the service and getting a lot of amusement/satisfaction out it. And it doesn't have ads, so I can't see how they are monetizing my usage any other way. So maybe I've had the good deal?

Just seems like loads of freeloaders getting upset. Strava is important enough for them to get upset about but not important enough to pay a £3.75 a month.

I subscribed. It was always coming. I like the app and the paid for stuff is worth the £4 a month for me as I love stats (sad I know). It's nothing compared to what I spend on running shoes.

However, the free version is still there and still good so win win for most people. I don't really see what there is to complain about, they were always going to do this as soon as they were confident enough.

I get a lot out of Strava and it's kept me in touch with people I used to run with but now can't, so it's good value as far as I'm concerned.

I think it's fair enough, I'm not exactly a dedicated runner but I've had a lot of use of it over the years and paid them absolutely nothing. They've got bills to pay like everyone else and better to do it by a subscription model than full on advertising or selling your data (IMO).

I don't do enough running to justify getting a subscription but I'm not really bothered about most of the features, just nice to have a record of where I've run and how fast so I'll just stick to the free version.

They might not have ads but they might be able to monetise the huge amount of (hopefully anonymous) data they collect.

They’re not skint from buying a bike

Same here. I'm not averse to supporting Strava and I'd happily pay £10-15 a year but the current pricing feels steep when all I'm interested in is the segments. Their app their choice though, I don't blame them for trying to make some money out of it. I'll still use it because I like the social element, I'll just be a bit less interested in it when I upload my rides/runs.

Strava subscription is incredible value. The extras you get under the current system are very worthwhile. People benefiting from the free service without being bombarded with adverts don’t know how lucky they’ve been. It’s like cyclists spending a grand on a set of wheels but moaning about the price of tea at £3 a cup in the cafe stop

I don’t even use half the features or the advanced ones but I signed up ages ago as it was such fun, livened up my boring commute and is a great idea as well as showing me what my friends are doing.

Felt honour bound to pay them for my enjoyment.

Cheers

Toby

Coming soon to a climbing website near you. 

Oh, wait... 

A quid a week sounds much cheaper than £4 a month. Hell, why not tell yourself it's 99p a week. £47.99 for a year would really put me off, mind.

In reply to SouthernSteve:

Yeah, but if you went without StravaMax it would only take you 60 years to save up the money for that bike. It's got to be worth waiting.

Worth noting they are doing a 60 day free trail for new subscribers which will hopefully see us through lockdown. 

I've been a subscriber for about a year now as I like looking at the data. 

IIRC the heapmap data is sold for planning purposes, but I'm not sure how much money that makes.

I guess it depend how much you value the data you get from Strava. I don't particularly, for me it is just a place to record my runs and rides and tellingly I've got a load data sat on both my watch which isn't auto uploading (haven't been bothered to sort out for a couple of weeks) and my bike garmin, which doesn't auto upload because it's an older model. I don't really engage much in the social side and I only try to be competitive with running, where races are the best measure of performance.

I've used Strava for years, and it has been really good for encouraging friends and colleagues to get exercising; now that I'm getting older it's replacing the hit I used to get from racing. I started subscribing last year because I suddenly realised how much I owe them for the pleasure I gain from using the app. I'll keep paying now for the same reason.

I got the email from Strava and one thing they mention is that they want to avoid being pushed into a corner where they consider selling data.

Personally I thought about it and joined - its a website I use almost every day and the 180 employees they have deserve an income... I would rather pay £4 a month than have it covered in adverts. 

Compared to the TrainingPeaks subscription model (£20/mo). The Strava sub is hardly anything for the features you are getting 

Probably keep the free version, I just use it to keep track of what I'm doing overall, I'm not really interested in segments.

I have been a paid subscriber for at least a year, I think it's a great app, and all the features allow me to monitor my training as I am not serious enough to use training peaks etc.

Lockdown will be here for a long time, and already this coming winters cyclo-cross season has been cancelled, so at least some of the long strava segments give me something to aim and train for, rather than just training for next year losing motivation not knowing when I could next race.  I also previously did a lot of training on watt bike at local gym, so without a power meter to monitor progression Strava is best I have .

I've been subscribing for seven years. I don't use most of the fancy training features, but I use the site a lot and gives me a lot of pleasure so for these reasons I will probably continue to subscribe, even though it lays before me the story of my long, slow and sometimes not so slow decline.

£1 a week is a good price, I think, and the site has to be supported somehow, just like the Guardian and this site do, for  both of which I would rather give money than suffer a blizzard of ads.

If I stopped subscribing I would no longer see my personal heat maps and the now improved training log. The former are now a wonderful record of where I have been and have a few times been a spur to me exploring new areas when I notice blanks on the map, and the latter is actually useful at times like now when I am quite motivated and want to remain so.

I cant see that venture capitalists would let them burn money without end. I wonder if that is cunning ploy to get tax credits or similar?

I've recently moved to strava. I previously used a vendors site. When the watch died, I didnt fancy buying a new one from that brand. I didnt want to loose years worth of logs.

Its probably worth pointing out that Under Armour, who make generic fitness wear, seem to be all over the digital health and fitness market. My fitness pal, map my fitness, map my run, map my *. I expect that they use the data to improve or promote their products or marketing. I wouldn't be surprised if they sell 'enriched' lifestyle data; where you exercise, at what level, what you eat and what you wear. In surveillance capitalism, you are the product.

I haven't used strava enough to really appreciate what it does or what you get for the extra money, over and above what my watch vedor gives

I've used it for years.  I have a passing interest in KOM's on those on which I stand a bit of a chance, but more particularly I want to keep myself within a percentage of the KOM.  I can't do that now, because I can't see my overall ranking - knowing that I'm slower than 10 others is of no use whatsoever. 

However, the Elevate add-in is working in parts on the web-based version, and is still showing overall standings, so you can still see if you're 'green' or not on each segment. Other parts of Elevate are just spinning wheels of nothing though....

Another 'me too', I think.  I was never tempted to sign up for 'Summit', the fancy analysis features don't particularly appeal.  I'm sure they're great for athletes, but I'm no athlete and I don't want to compare myself to other people on segments, by age, by weight, whatever.  I am interested in comparing today's effort with previous efforts though, so am mildly miffed at the loss of that functionality.

I'm a bit torn really.  I'm half tempted to subscribe, but remain unconvinced that the 'fancy' features interest me at all and just shy of fifty quid a year seems a bit much, particularly just now as my own income has fallen off a cliff.  If it were twenty quid a year I'd have just done it without a second thought.

Strava do sell data, maybe not personal data, but they sell data.

Logbook premium for Black Panthers/Wire Wankers featuring style of ascent leaderboards.

I've been a subscriber for some time already.

It's business, users need to make a simple choice rather than complaining about the lack of free stuff.

I average a bit over 1200 miles a year over 4 runs a week. 
I subscribed to premium many years ago in order to see the HR analysis. They automatically enrolled me in all 3 summit packages at no extra cost. I think I’m paying £29 a year. 
 

That works out at 13p a run or about 2p a mile. And unlike shoes, the more runs/miles I do the rate reduces. Compare that to 2-3 pairs of shoes a year at £80 a pair or maybe £30-40 a race.
 

It’s not really a deal breaker for me. 
 

OS-Maps is £4 a month and I might only use that a few times a year in anger, but the paper map is now around £15 AFAIR. 

I have subscribed for several years now after realising I used it enough to warrant paying for it.

I'm not really going to trouble many leader boards, however PB's are interesting. 

I also enjoy the heatmaps and use the Beacon facility as I frequently ride alone and my wife has no idea where I'm going. It does have the downside that when I go out with a mate on an evening ride, she can spot which pub we end up in !

It's £2 a month if you buy the rolling year-long subscription. That's another site I use frequently and pay for.

I've been subscribing for yonks. I use it all the time and a quid a week is a sacrifice of half a pint a week. Win win.

Plus, as others have said, folks need to have a wage either by annoying ads or subscribers.

They were not profitable. I know some of the original people and run with some from their office. They held out as long as they could, this really isn't pandemic related.

They thought more would sign up but their free product was too good so no enough did. It's as simple as that. If they didnt get more subscribers they'll go within a year.

You’re correct. I’m paying £24 a year. Ha. 

Runners on the whole will be far less data driven, like me, most won’t feel they are losing much functionality.

Perhaps it would be worth their while thinking about adding a 'second tier' subscription for less serious users like me.  The free product was always good enough for me (not so much now they've downgraded it) - I'd happily chip in to continue using that, maybe with a little more functionality.  But nearly fifty quid a year seems a bit steep.  Never having tried I can't be completely sure, but I don't think I'd ever use any of the whistles and bells clever stuff aimed at serious athletes.

Same deal as with UKC really.  Like, I suspect, many other 'supporters' I was happy to stump up twenty quid odd for a year's subscription as an ordinary second-class nutwanker but as a non logbook-obsessive non app-user would not have chipped in if the fifty-quid odd whizz-bang super deluxe version was the only option.

The main thing I use is the mapping feature. I've still got a professional runner status so get it for free. I've emailed saying take me off it as I'm not at that level anymore but they kept me on. I was one of the early ambassadors for them. My main worry is losing my calendar because I've stopped keeping my spreadsheet.

I use my OS subscription and the app loads, it's just a shame the app is pile of (something that rhymes with app!). I think I'm paying 20 quid a year, which would seem good value if they just had some better app designers!

I agree - at half the price I think they'd get more than twice as many subscribers

Where the hell are you drinking?

I actually quite like the OS app, though I understand why not everybody does.  The thing that baffles me is that it shows older maps than the website does (or that the Viewranger app does, if you pay the subscription for OS maps on that).

For example the relatively new bridleway that goes up through the woods at Wigtwizzle from about SK255958 - you can see it on the OS website or the Viewranger app, but it's not there on the OS app.

Try getting a look at Irish OS maps online cheaply or for free.  It will certainly seem like very good value after that!  The best I could do for a road-trip mini adventure type thing last year was through Viewranger, over a hundred quid for just the 1:50k maps and more again if you want Norn Iron as well.  And you can't easily print nice maps the way you can from the GB OS website, so I still ended up buying a few paper maps while I was over there too.

Ooft, this thread took off!

Just to feel like I'm still contributing, you'll be pleased to know I caved in and subscribed 😃

Agree completely about a ''second tier" subscription.

I don't care about all the performance stuff and KoMs, it's just nice to know if I'm getting quicker/slower on my usual route, uploading the odd photo of a good run and having a bit of banter 

I'd certainly chuck in £20. Nearly £50 is different.

I haven't noticed anything missing! It still does the job for me. I'm all in favour of paying to keep the app going, but not £50 a year for functionality that I never use. 

I get 8 x 330ml cans of brewdog for 9 quid at my local Tesco  I'm royally pissed as we speak but it seems close. I'm sure the UKC pendants will do the calcs as I cant be arsed.

I'm absolutely fine with the quality of the mapping it's the functionality of the app that annoys me. Last year they had to send everyone an email apologising because of big update turned out to be a complete disaster! I used an earlier OS app where you bought map tiles through Amazon. For 1:50000 tiles it was only 70p. It was super stable and I used it as a backup to map and compass a lot when winter climbing in poor conditions and the like. But when I changed phones it failed to update my paid for mapping and OS had stopped supporting it by that point. They offered to give me the equivalent mapping as downloadable areas within the new app but I find it loses downloaded map areas all the time anyway, plus I have the subscription to all the mapping so it didn't seem worth going back through my Amazon account finding the dozens of receipts over the years for the different map tiles I had bought!

I take your point about the Irish maps, on the other hand you can get all of Norway at 1 to 25000 for free from their national mapping agency, so maybe try there for your next holiday! 😉

That happens to me too, often. All the same I have found the app to be invaluable on numerous runs and walks for telling me where I am on a proper map and I use the browser version often on my laptop for working things out beforehand/figuring out afterwards where I actually went or could/should have gone.

The French Trace de Trail is excellent.

Yep, I planned my big bike ride the night before on the laptop. Even being able to swap to aerial photo was actually helpful in trying to work out if some bridleways connected up with cycle paths on old railways - as that wasn't clear even on 1:25000.

I just wish it wasn't so buggy. The stability of the older app I had was superb, so perhaps I was just spoilt by that.

I think I've just been lucky with the downloaded maps on the OS app, never had a problem with them personally.  I must just have the right version of Android or something.  The browser version can be a wee bit frustrating sometimes when it randomly refuses to print or something, but that usually only lasts a minute or two.

For planning routes I find the Open Street Maps really handy (especially the Open Cycle Map variant) as well as the OS maps and aerial views.  If I'm ever planning a route on my phone I find the Viewranger app much better than the OS one, and with the OS subscription you can switch between OS, OSM/OCM and aerial photos in the same app.  I don't have the OS maps on the Viewranger app though because it seems daft having two subscriptions to the same maps and as far as I can make out there's no way to print a decent map from Viewranger.  (My main use for the OS subscription is to print my own 25k or 50k maps to scale on A4 or A3 sheets.)

On the laptop I'm usually looking at Open Street Map maps either via BikeHike or directly on https://www.openstreetmap.org

Back on topic I still haven't made my mind up about Strava.  It's 50/50, I'm either going to stump up for a subscription or just give up on it altogether.  I'm using a Garmin watch so everything gets uploaded via Garmin anyway and it already does everything the free version of Strava does now.

You can do that with the Stravistix/Elevate plugin in Strava without getting a subscription. It will tell you the amount of time and the % quicker or slower you are in relation to 1. the KOM 2. Your all-time PB, and 3. Your PB for the year. It will do this for each segment, but not for the ride as a whole, and will also list your position overall for that segment and where you are as a %, i.e. 61/3169 (1.9%).

It does, except that if you did give up on it you would miss the social dimension. I have found Strava to be an almost wholly healthy social arena. It does expect its dues - I feel I have to have done something to go in, but once there I see familiar faces getting out and doing something themselves and saying well done to me, however terrible my run actually was. I see my virtual mate X running precise tramlines on fields, Y tracing a strange curve in the North sea as he runs from aft to stern multiple times on the moving ship on which he works, Z just keeping her head above water as she gets out each day in the face of ill health, and others just showing me what is possible or their routes or photos of where they go. I'm a punter, but for me these have probably been greater motivators to continue or start again than any performance metric.

I know these things are all available for free, which as roadrunner said might be Strava's problem in getting more of us to subscribe.

The latest update of the Strava app is looking good.

The ability to see your training log on mobile  and scroll back to previous years to see what your prep was like is great. 

One of the things I dislike about a number of sites is where they encourage you to download an app and it has less functionality than the website. 

Good point - perhaps I should have said Garmin does everything Strava does for me now..

It's cool that it's a healthy social arena for you, but nah, I've never engaged in that side of it and wouldn't miss it at all.  I don't follow anyone and whatever I upload is usually marked private. 

I was very self-conscious about my running when I first started (so much so that for the first couple of years almost all of it was done in the dark), and I still tend to run in places where I know there won't be many people about.  I've got over that a bit now, have enjoyed taking part in a few fell races and such and sometimes enjoy running with friends, but publishing the data from my watch on the internet would still feel weird.  Sort of exhibitionist, if you see what I mean.

That’s the whole point of an App though. It’s a limited version for the mobile user.

They can see from analytics what browsers and OSs people are using and tailor their products to suit. 
 

Trying to plan a route on a small Mobile is pointless and frustrating so no point having on an App. 

Good for you. Whatever works. After years and years, I still also run alone almost all the time. I like it that way.

If you use a service for free you’re not the customer; you’re the product

This notion of being honour bound is interesting.  Our free usage of Strava gave them the data that they needed to set up a massive base of lycra warriors to create the massive database of segment times and KOMS.

In an age where data is such a valuable commodity I think we should reconsider this notion of gratitude.

I find their new subscription campaign to be short sighted.

They're cutting down their competitor base which can only be a bad thing.

I'm happy to pay for increased metrics but £4 a month for leaderboards that we have had since day one is a sting.

We helped built strava with our thousands of hard miles. We are not merely customers of this app!

I think Strava really messed up here but let's see.

🤔

So what's your suggestion for a company that will go under if it can't get more income?

If you arent paying then you arent a customer.

Now they could go the ads route in which case the ad companies are the customer and you are the free input but they seem to be trying to avoid that for now (with as far as I can tell the only indirect data usage being the selling of heat map info to interested parties which admittedly is a tad vague).

Wasn't their original business model to sell "big data" based on routes and where people had been?

That was pretty much my train of thought as well so I subscribed as well. Money well spent as far as Im concerned.

I subscribed at the beginning of the year. I have used Strava for about 10 years. I am not interested in KOM's, as I am 65 and unlikely to ever get one! In was more interested in getting a more detailed analysis of my data (it's a nerd thing). I actually paid less than £50 using some special offer code. However, it's worth it for me, especially if the site doesn't bombard me with ads.

For a very detailed view of the differences between the free and subscription site see GPLama's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlNf2u-FiXE&t=912s

Jump to about 5mins if you only want to find out the differences between free and subscribe.

Having heard him being interviewed, he comes across as a genuine guy, much like Tom Williams and Paul Sinton-Hewitt. They’re really not interested in making millions of pounds from your data. If they were in it for the money they would have been millionaires long ago. They are purely in it to create a community of healthy, fit individuals. 

You may be cynical but I find it refreshing that in these times there are people like this.

He didn’t set out to make money from an app, he set out to connect people. 

The OP says "are you gonna subscribe or delete!?!" as if it's a real dilemma, and it kind of is.  For the OP, I presume, for me, and for one or two other posters in this thread.

I don't think I'm going to do either, but I'm more likely to just stop using the site than subscribe.  My data comes off a Garmin watch so it's already uploaded to Garmin before I can even access it so there's really no point uploading it to the free version of Strava as well now that it offers nothing more.

Like jazzyjackson and others in this thread, I'd be happy to pay something for what was formerly free and maybe a little more.  Amply enough to cover their costs for providing those features I should think, and a little bit more besides.  Plus they would continue to get the data it's no longer worth the effort of uploading that is presumably worth something to them, even if I am unlikely to be the king of any mountain.

So as a punter and potential customer for a punter-level Strava somewhere between the current free version and the somewhat expensive full-on athlete version, my suggestion would be that they find a way to take my money instead of trying to sell me a more expensive service I'm just not really interested in.

so I’ll just qualify my intended statement by saying that I think Strava is a great product, I get why they’ve done what they’ve done, and people can now subscribe or not as they choose.

in relation to the data they already have, accrued before the change of T&Cs - what if someone now puts in a freedom of information request asking for all the data held about them?

have Strava erred here?

You mean a Subject Access Request?  Presumably they will have to provide the data to you in some form.  Though you can access most if not all of it yourself by logging in!

Can't you still get your raw data ie your rides, runs etc ? The stuff you pay for is just processing this data.

Full download and delete are available

Ah, that’s fair points. Think I’d misinterpreted that as I couldn’t access all forms of my data (eg my own list of previous times for a segment or ride) that I couldn’t access my data. But you’re right, those lists are just ways of processing the data. 
the data itself is all still there under the individual rides if I wanted to process it myself. 
thanks for unmuddling my thinking. 

Just think of your monthly £4 payment as n+1 (Where n = the amount of months previously paid)

Strava itself is definitely worth £48 a year, though I'm not sure the upgrade from the free version is. But that's just me, I only really use it to log rides and to compare monthly mileage.