I wonder what is going on at Strava. It feels like peak Strava was some time around 2018. Since then, it seems like features have only been getting disabled, hidden behind opt in flags, or moved to the paid plans. I completely understand the decision to move things to paid since their service does cost a lot to run and the subscription isn't expensive, but where are all the new and cool features that should have come out over the last few years?
And I wonder if the article is correct in that they are pivoting away from segments. That seems strange since segments seem like the most compelling feature.
Strava is extremely frustrating. I've been a paid user for 10+ years. They do add features from time to time, but it's amazing how slowly it happens. There's a forum on their web site for user feedback and suggestions, but it seems like they pay little attention to the users. So many of their users that I know feel like a run or bike ride didn't happen if they don't record it on Strava. It's a super addictive and sticky product, yet Strava seems to squander this loyalty by ignoring their customers.
Route building and personal heatmaps are some of my favorite features, but there's so much that could be added (like a simple search). To some degree their customers are spread out over so many market segments beyond the original biking and running that they started with. Each segment has their own needs and wants. Then there's all the hardware (watches, power meters, trainers, etc..) that needs to be integrated and supported.
Most apps/startups begin as an exploration of product/market fit. They'll try a lot of different things and use analytics (even simple server-side stats) to determine what people actually use in the app. Very frequently, you discover that the things you thought your users would want are actually only used by 0.05% of your customers. Eventually you have to start shedding rarely used features and limiting free plans, even if it makes the non-paying users angry.
Truth is, it doesn't really matter if you're losing someone who spend 5 years on the free plan but refused to sign up for the paid plan. They're not converting to paid unless they're forced to, and you're not gaining any money by letting them stay on the free plan for another 5 years.
> but where are all the new and cool features that should have come out over the last few years?
Cutting rarely-used features like this one could be a sign that they're trying to free up engineering resources to ship new features.
From discussions I've had with people at Strava, they're trying to be more focused on implementing a few key features really well. When the original founders returned in 2018 or 2019, the app had a ton of features that had been half integrated, couldn't be found in order to be used, etc etc.
They paired back things that weren't working, moved to focus on revenue (as they weren't going to be able to grow into the social network for all activities like they tried).
I think it's the right strategy, but this move makes no sense. It's very easy for them to manage duplicate data, and I'm surprised to see them suggest users set-up their garmin device to connect directly to Apple. This essentially makes it easier for strava to be cut out of the loop in the future if the social aspect isn't working for you.
> And I wonder if the article is correct in that they are pivoting away from segments
That's not what DCR wrote, that part was clearly about user perception: Strava has grown into something bigger than just that app that declares you KOM when you go really fast.
There's also the reality where their client base gets older and loses interest in taking their sport as seriously. My entire cycling circle stopped regularly using Strava years ago because we just all got older and no longer had that competitive interest.
Started using it in 2019 and it only got worse, it's a shame because I really enjoy the social aspect of it since it bundles a lot of sport and gear into one place but with this trend I feel like the users will be leaving.
All of the (Garmin, Strava, Apple, and Google [who is trying really hard but failing]) want a monopoly on your health data. Garmin is the only one I actually trust currently, as they've shown 0 willingness to monetize your health information.
The Strava/Garmin relationship is an interesting one: Strava has the social network, Garmin has the best devices [for serious Athletes, not casual users]. Garmin Connect is pretty cool in it's own right, but the Social features never really took off, which is where Strava plays and has a de-fact monopoly. Strava can't survive without Garmin, and Garmin benefits from Strava's content.
Garmin has pulled some 'power moves' in the past though with people it doesn't like... A competitor: Wahoo, who made cycling GPS computers, was cut off from inserting data into Garmin Connect and it left a lot of users out in the cold. Most serious cyclists will use Garmin devices, not an Apple watch, to track their rides as it seamlessly integrates with ANT+ sensors: power, cadence, wheel speed, heart rate, chainring and cog positions sensors.
Interesting to see Strava cut off Apple... I'm guessing it has to do something with preventing them from developing an alternative to the Strava social network.
Strava isn't cut off from Apple. Instead, Garmin/Fitbit etc. would send their data to Strava, which then would forward it to Apple for them. The part where Strava takes the data from non-Strava apps is the one that got disabled (presumably by strava and not by garmin, but either could have).
> All of the (Garmin, Strava, Apple, and Google [who is trying really hard but failing]) want a monopoly on your health data. Garmin is the only one I actually trust currently, as they've shown 0 willingness to monetize your health information.
I guess their huge data breach that they didn't notify and spent weeks fixing doesn't phase you, but it punted me out of their system.
I'm still shocked and amazed that anyone would willingly share their health data with corporations. Why? What could go right? I say that acknowledging your point that this is possibly one of the better corporations out there.
> Garmin is the only one I actually trust currently, as they've shown 0 willingness to monetize your health information.
What about the concern that the company is bought out in the future? Or that it may be sharing data already, with government agencies, etc? Or companies that it works with?
I honestly can't even imagine the criteria whereby a corporation could be 'trusted' with personal information!
It boggles my mind, that people think about this - and plainly you do - but come to the judgement that its ok for corporations to have this personal data!
I think this can make sense. The recording devices ideally should have their own integrations with Apple Health so the source pushes to all the data repos rather than repos chaining the data along.
Wonder if this includes third party sensor data that’s tracked with Strava. Like if I use a chest strap and record into Strava, will the exported data include the sensor data or is that considered “third party”
The weird thing is that they claim it's to avoid duplicate activities, but they totally know how to recognize duplicates already. Every so often, there's some sort of glitch in one of my activities getting from Garmin to Strava. If I'm feeling impatient, I download the .fit file from Garmin and upload it to Strava myself, and I never get a duplicate that way. Happened for the first time in a while just last week. Clearly, whenever Garmin does send the data, Strava is perfectly capable of recognizing an activity it already has, and it does the right thing. I'm just not buying that excuse.
BTW and a bit OT, I find it very impressive that Strava can retroactively create a leaderboard going back years for a newly created segment, meaning that they must evaluate potentially millions of nearby activities for overlaps, often in just a few minutes. That's a hell of a query. Anybody know of more information on how they do it?
I thought they meant duplicate activities on the Apple Health side. If they can't read what the other services are writing to Apple Health then they have no way of avoiding duplicates.
Instead of fixing shit like the issues pointed out in this post, they spent all their resources fucking up the UX in the app. The new activity save screen is complicated and is very obscure about where the various form data are going to show up in the final post. It used to be intuitive and straight forward. Feels like they were trying to be clever.
What is the most important data (or strava features) you want to keep?
I was actually looking into this myself, and a few parts of strava are not that hard.
For me the overview of my rides (including avg speed and distance is important), I quickly implemented a webpage with javascript and leaflet (map viewer), and I could present that data pretty quickly using geojson. I had an offline program which converted gpx traces to geojson, but I'm pretty sure I'm able to read gpx in javascript directly.
The harder part is generating the gpx trace (which I used komoot app for), as this involves matching your trace (gps positions) on a map instead of using the data as is.
I actually spent a lot of time working on one. As usual there isn't a whole lot of special sauce that makes it impossible but its an immense amount to replicate all of the features as well as a rather expensive to run piece of software if you want something like segments and high score boards.
And after all this, your user base consists of the people who didn't want to pay for strava.
I built one for myself, sqlite + apache superset. I basically did that because over the years I had switched devices from different companies and I used to use endomondo which was shut down. I wanted to have all my data in once place. It does require me to export data from device and use my import script once a while, however works for me.
Progress is slow as a solo dev who contributes to it in their spare time, but I’m happy enough with it that I could archive my Strava account and switch to it fully.
paid version just gets more and more complicated, all i want is to know how many days per week and miles per week i ran with my times trending up or down, but all the easy to use screens have been removed and replaced by designer mush. it’s like KPIs have gone wrong and they think the rage navigating is engagement. app was fine in like 2017. and then when they make me swipe through some product tour of overcomplicated BS or hunt for the concealed “close ad” button on some stupid year end recap when all i want to do is start my run. i think they have too many PMs competing on vanity metrics to justify their existence
I kept messing with my settings yesterday to figure out why my Strava data wasn't exporting to Apple health. Now I know why, I must've spent an hour trying to get it to work.
Garmin Connect is so much better than Strava it's not even close. The only reason I could possibly imagine preferring Strava is if I desperately need my social circle to be aware of my every workout. For those of us who do this for ourselves and not the approval of our peers Strava is miles behind.
That's a very negative view of why people want to share on Strava. It's not all about ego. Sometimes it's about motivation, in two ways. I try to track my own times on various segments to see how well my training is going, and sometimes challenge myself to beat those times, because that helps me increase route variety and that helps me keep going. (I don't actually like running so much as I like having run BTW.) Garmin Connect's equivalent of segments is a barely populated wasteland by comparison (though I do like the pace-color-coded display more than Strava's so I usually look at both).
Even more importantly, Strava is a platform where friends can encourage each other, and celebrate each other's accomplishments. I greatly appreciate the "kudos" I get from others, and that was especially true after I had a setback some years ago. I have a friend right now who had an even more serious setback, and I'm glad I have a way to support him as he logs his rehab activities. It's the only forum where we're connected (he's not very online the way I am) and it enriches both of our lives.
I know a lot of people think Strava is just about getting KoMs to satisfy ego. I submit that it's often projection or bitterness from people who don't get what they want out of it. Seems like a miserable way to be.
Gigachad|4 years ago
And I wonder if the article is correct in that they are pivoting away from segments. That seems strange since segments seem like the most compelling feature.
s1mon|4 years ago
Route building and personal heatmaps are some of my favorite features, but there's so much that could be added (like a simple search). To some degree their customers are spread out over so many market segments beyond the original biking and running that they started with. Each segment has their own needs and wants. Then there's all the hardware (watches, power meters, trainers, etc..) that needs to be integrated and supported.
PragmaticPulp|4 years ago
Most apps/startups begin as an exploration of product/market fit. They'll try a lot of different things and use analytics (even simple server-side stats) to determine what people actually use in the app. Very frequently, you discover that the things you thought your users would want are actually only used by 0.05% of your customers. Eventually you have to start shedding rarely used features and limiting free plans, even if it makes the non-paying users angry.
Truth is, it doesn't really matter if you're losing someone who spend 5 years on the free plan but refused to sign up for the paid plan. They're not converting to paid unless they're forced to, and you're not gaining any money by letting them stay on the free plan for another 5 years.
> but where are all the new and cool features that should have come out over the last few years?
Cutting rarely-used features like this one could be a sign that they're trying to free up engineering resources to ship new features.
pedalpete|4 years ago
They paired back things that weren't working, moved to focus on revenue (as they weren't going to be able to grow into the social network for all activities like they tried).
I think it's the right strategy, but this move makes no sense. It's very easy for them to manage duplicate data, and I'm surprised to see them suggest users set-up their garmin device to connect directly to Apple. This essentially makes it easier for strava to be cut out of the loop in the future if the social aspect isn't working for you.
usrusr|4 years ago
That's not what DCR wrote, that part was clearly about user perception: Strava has grown into something bigger than just that app that declares you KOM when you go really fast.
unknown|4 years ago
[deleted]
oldstrangers|4 years ago
thi2|4 years ago
outside1234|4 years ago
And it apparently isn't valuable enough to charge more for ($5/month)
exabrial|4 years ago
The Strava/Garmin relationship is an interesting one: Strava has the social network, Garmin has the best devices [for serious Athletes, not casual users]. Garmin Connect is pretty cool in it's own right, but the Social features never really took off, which is where Strava plays and has a de-fact monopoly. Strava can't survive without Garmin, and Garmin benefits from Strava's content.
Garmin has pulled some 'power moves' in the past though with people it doesn't like... A competitor: Wahoo, who made cycling GPS computers, was cut off from inserting data into Garmin Connect and it left a lot of users out in the cold. Most serious cyclists will use Garmin devices, not an Apple watch, to track their rides as it seamlessly integrates with ANT+ sensors: power, cadence, wheel speed, heart rate, chainring and cog positions sensors.
Interesting to see Strava cut off Apple... I'm guessing it has to do something with preventing them from developing an alternative to the Strava social network.
oneplane|4 years ago
rodgerd|4 years ago
I guess their huge data breach that they didn't notify and spent weeks fixing doesn't phase you, but it punted me out of their system.
verisimi|4 years ago
> Garmin is the only one I actually trust currently, as they've shown 0 willingness to monetize your health information.
What about the concern that the company is bought out in the future? Or that it may be sharing data already, with government agencies, etc? Or companies that it works with?
I honestly can't even imagine the criteria whereby a corporation could be 'trusted' with personal information!
It boggles my mind, that people think about this - and plainly you do - but come to the judgement that its ok for corporations to have this personal data!
js2|4 years ago
I’m a happy Garmin user but I know a lot of distance runners that have switched to Coros. They love the battery life w/o sacrificing GPS accuracy.
samschooler|4 years ago
Strava -> Apple Health, still works
Garmin/Fitbod/3rd party app -> Strava -> Apple Health, no longer syncs.
IMHO this is better for me because now I don’t have duplicates in Apple Health and can sync to both services. But to each they’re own I guess.
Gigachad|4 years ago
artdigital|4 years ago
stingrae|4 years ago
micromacrofoot|4 years ago
notacoward|4 years ago
BTW and a bit OT, I find it very impressive that Strava can retroactively create a leaderboard going back years for a newly created segment, meaning that they must evaluate potentially millions of nearby activities for overlaps, often in just a few minutes. That's a hell of a query. Anybody know of more information on how they do it?
mulmen|4 years ago
Even if it is a couple orders of magnitude larger than I think geographic partitioning can keep the volume small enough to easily fit in RAM.
whimsicalism|4 years ago
datavirtue|4 years ago
trentgreene|4 years ago
bjorn2k|4 years ago
I was actually looking into this myself, and a few parts of strava are not that hard. For me the overview of my rides (including avg speed and distance is important), I quickly implemented a webpage with javascript and leaflet (map viewer), and I could present that data pretty quickly using geojson. I had an offline program which converted gpx traces to geojson, but I'm pretty sure I'm able to read gpx in javascript directly. The harder part is generating the gpx trace (which I used komoot app for), as this involves matching your trace (gps positions) on a map instead of using the data as is.
voigt|4 years ago
Gigachad|4 years ago
And after all this, your user base consists of the people who didn't want to pay for strava.
asdfadfas|4 years ago
xsmasher|4 years ago
ecf|4 years ago
Progress is slow as a solo dev who contributes to it in their spare time, but I’m happy enough with it that I could archive my Strava account and switch to it fully.
prmoustache|4 years ago
I guess you might be able to do interesting dashboards with grafana.
dustingetz|4 years ago
ijustwanttovote|4 years ago
Angostura|4 years ago
It seems that Strava agrees with me - which is a bit odd.
gumby|4 years ago
mdoms|4 years ago
adam-_-|4 years ago
Even for route planning (years ago) which I would not say Strava is fantastic at, it still seemed worse.
YMMV
notacoward|4 years ago
Even more importantly, Strava is a platform where friends can encourage each other, and celebrate each other's accomplishments. I greatly appreciate the "kudos" I get from others, and that was especially true after I had a setback some years ago. I have a friend right now who had an even more serious setback, and I'm glad I have a way to support him as he logs his rehab activities. It's the only forum where we're connected (he's not very online the way I am) and it enriches both of our lives.
I know a lot of people think Strava is just about getting KoMs to satisfy ego. I submit that it's often projection or bitterness from people who don't get what they want out of it. Seems like a miserable way to be.
renewiltord|4 years ago
This one:
1. I don't use Strava because I am doing things for myself and not the approval of my peers
I shall shelve this along with my other HN faves which are (paraphrased):
1. I am remote because unlike everyone who goes to the office I have a life with hobbies and I don't like having friends only from work
2. For those of us who own a phone for productive reasons and not for social "clout", iPhones are terrible
3. If you want to do work and not just sit around in coffee shops posting about work, you would avoid a Macbook
Very enjoyable.
rufius|4 years ago
unknown|4 years ago
[deleted]
saos|4 years ago
whimsicalism|4 years ago
CoastalCoder|4 years ago
My impression of Apple has been that it's a mixed-bag for privacy, etc., so I'm actually not sure.
outside1234|4 years ago
unknown|4 years ago
[deleted]