strava struggles

It was not my intention to ever write an opinion piece on this blog but the recent changes to Strava have got the whole cycling community talking and I wanted to record my views if for nothing more than to see if they change over time. It has been couple of weeks now since Strava announced that some of their functionality is going behind a paywall. I still have not made my mind up what I think about that but right now my feelings towards Strava are not good.

It is safe to say that this recent move is a sign of a company in trouble. We have known for a while that Strava was losing money hand over fist and it seems their creditors have called time on the endeavour. After several attempts to sell added value content this looks like a last ditch attempt to save the company at the expense of the user community.

I have a number of friends who are quite happy to pony up for the £60 a year for the full service but it sits less well with me and I am not right now. They argue that they since they use Strava actively they feel that they should pay for it. I understand that and we get a lot of functionality from Strava for “free” but fundamentally at its heart Strava is a social media platform and I can’t think of another such platform that charges its users for access. Think FaceBook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, etc, etc. That is not how the social media world works.

What Strava have just done here is also despicable. They have teased their community with free stuff, allowed them a to get settled in and then told them if they still want it they now have to pay. This is how drug dealers operate and it is a unacceptable way for a community based company like Strava to behave.

From a commercial perspective Strava have been able to effectively create a monopoly and make it impossible for competing platforms to gain a foothold. Now they are abusing that position. This is a company we trust with vast quantities of our data and this type of sudden change in policy leads me to question that trust.

the problem

There are many web services that provide some basic functionality free and then charge for premium services. The problem Starva has is that the premium services approach has not worked. And the reasons for that are quite clear. The added value services they have developed have not “added value”.

the analytical data

Lets start with the main one, the analytical data. On the surface this seems obvious, your bike computer gathers a bunch of data and so crunching that to give use useful insights into your performance and training is a clear value add. But not so fast. If you are really serious you are going to get a TrainingPeaks subscription, here a bunch of people have invested time and money into serious research, mapped out human physiological responses to training inputs and developed clever algorithms to model this and deliver proven results. Strava can’t match this because the TrainingPeaks guys are commercially savvy and have protected their IP. So for the serious cyclist the Summit subscription did not bring anything of value.

the route planner

The next part of the new upgrade is the route planner. Here Starva hit another problem, its called Komoot and is the benchmark route planner for cycling. For a one off payment that is less than a single Strava monthly payment Komoot “unlocks” your local area. A one-off £30 payment to Komoot (less than an annual Strava subscription) gets you the whole world! On this basis upgrading to the paid version of Stava for the route builder does not sound like good value for money. Komoot also has ‘social” features that Strava, unforgivably, does not have.

the segment leader tables

So that covers the 2 main “premium” features that are behind the Strava paywall. Strava know that they are unlikely to be successfull with these (Summit clearly failed) so they needed another way to entice subscribers. They have been forced to play dirty and launched their dastardly move to block segment leader tables. This makes me feel like I am being bullied into a subscription which is not very conducive to brand loyalty.

I am not going to pay Strava for access to the segment leader tables because it is my data, that I have created and given to Strava for free. Now they want me to pay them to get it back. No thank you.

Without segment leader tables Strava really is just Facebook for cyclists. And if that is the case why not just use Facebook, I can upload my rides and a few photos to Facebook so my friends can see what I am doing, I dont need Strava. Obviously those of us already using free Strava will continue to do so but what is the hook that will bring in new users if there is no way to see how you place against your mates on the leader boards? I can see the uptake of new users falling rapidly.

the advertising

Stava have pointed out that they have investigated advertising on the platform but focus groups have told them that they wouldn’t like that. Well of course they would say that, but that doesn’t stop any of us from watching commercial television does it.

the future

I have lost faith in their commercial leadership team and that makes me concerned for their long term future. Several failed changes of direction over premium content are one indicator of this, and I dont want to get further committed to the platform by buying a subscription just for it to change again. I dont trust them anymore.

So what should Strava do? They really need to focus on their original core, the social media aspect. There are a host of other applications out there doing interesting things with the Strava API, the most well know being Veloviewer. What they are doing is excellent which I why I subscribe to them. They are and many others are filling the holes in the Strava offering.

So Strava now find themselves with a popular but unprofitable company primarily due to their own failings to develop it successfully now being overtaken by the competition. Anyone remember “Friends Reunited”?