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Strava cuts off leaderboard for free users, reduces third party apps

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Re: Strava cuts off leaderboard for free users, reduces third party apps

#91

Post by nradov »

avs733 wrote: post #74
nradov wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strava does pretty well as a social network. But their analytics are generally weaker than TrainingPeaks or Garmin Connect.

I hope this at least solves the people 'gps bombing' certain popular segments with fake times. I use all three of those apps you mentioned and generally here is how I frame them: TrainingPeaks - analytics, record keeping, tracking improvement, interacting with my running coach, planning build up to events, making notes to self about training. (Training and planning) Garmin Connect - where I record, check data, and ha…

Many of the popular Strava segments are a total joke, full of obvious fakes or mistakes. They claim to automatically flag suspicious activities but I still see so many that can't possibly be correct. I doubt Strava is even using any ML technology to catch those.

Re: Strava cuts off leaderboard for free users, reduces third party apps

#92

Post by pedalpete »

kingosticks wrote: post #60
pedalpete wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this affecting your app negatively? They reached out to us a few months ago, and didn't directly state what they were doing, but strongly suggested we be prepared for changes to the API.

No, I don't use the leaderboards/segments at all fortunately. But I am concerned the APIs I do use will stop working next week. It's really nice they contacted some API users about incoming changes but outside of this inner circle it will have come as an unpleasant surprise today. Out of interest, how did you prepare for unstated API changes? What if their change had crippled your integration, or did they contact to…

We speak to them a few times a year, it was just kinda mentioned that some changes were coming to leaderboards. We had been considering using some of the learderboard stuff, so it was fortunate for us that they mentioned it.

I can answer this in two parts, as we are both consumers of the Strava API, as well as providing an API (of non-strava data) to other businesses.

When using another API, you always have to be prepared for that data to not be available. This isn't just from a business point of view, but technical as well. Will a change in their API cause your entire app to fall over?

Even with our Strava integration, if Strava cut off access, the users can still upload their GPX tracks directly, so it would definitely hurt, but not take us down completely.

When we are working on our own API, man..I'll be honest, it's hard. From a technical perspective managing lots of versions running at the same time can be a pain, and add quite a bit of challenge to engineering. We have had to remove features, and we've reached out to our API users who use those features to say they are going away (or sometimes we just turn them off, and nobody notices).

When we've had to turn off features, it's usually a business case, just like Strava, and to be honest, our customers have understood why we make the change, and have been accepting of it.

Sounds like you're a Strava user, we built https://ayvri.com

Re: Strava cuts off leaderboard for free users, reduces third party apps

#94

Post by mgv11 »

I am a paying member, although don't really see a point in it. Especially since I've noticed that I am using Strava mostly for the social aspect, even if I normally don't care for any of social media stuff. It is really fun to see how my friends, local runners and professional train. For stats I always use Smashrun and Garmin Connect.

Re: Strava cuts off leaderboard for free users, reduces third party apps

#95

Post by markus92 »

supernova87a wrote: post #56
markus92 wrote: post #18

Cyclists are going to revolt, everyone wants to beat their friends on their favorite hill. It was one of the features I loved most about the app as I could see myself improving compared to people I have a good reference to.

Given what you just said, isn't it logical that Strava would want to monetize that?

You lose the whole network/community effect. I'm not going to pay $60 a year to stick it to my mate who can't stick it back to me when he beats my record. It's their one feature that sets them apart from the rest and they just killed it.

Re: Strava cuts off leaderboard for free users, reduces third party apps

#96

Post by kingosticks »

pedalpete wrote: post #92
kingosticks wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't use the leaderboards/segments at all fortunately. But I am concerned the APIs I do use will stop working next week. It's really nice they contacted some API users about incoming changes but outside of this inner circle it will have come as an unpleasant surprise today. Out of interest, how did you prepare for unstated API changes? What if their change had crippled your integration, or did they contact to…

We speak to them a few times a year, it was just kinda mentioned that some changes were coming to leaderboards. We had been considering using some of the learderboard stuff, so it was fortunate for us that they mentioned it. I can answer this in two parts, as we are both consumers of the Strava API, as well as providing an API (of non-strava data) to other businesses. When using another API, you always have to be pre…

No, but it's not just falling over entirely that's the problem. APIs go down all the time so that's a case you'd hopefully handle gracefully. But when your project suddenly and silently produces an empty blank result, say. And you learn that's not some transient issue, that's how it is now. That's a huge breaking change for you. A non-breaking change, at least in the short-term, would be to continue providing the old data as is. Yes, the project might still be dead but how about showing people just an ounce of respect? This isn't rocket science, this is customer relations, and yet an established company like Strava still behaves this way.

I appreciate you sharing this. Perhaps I am an idealist but it doesn't hurt to tell consumers that you are going to break the API contract you made with them. It's how I choose to treat the people I work with because I want to keep working with them. Supporting your old stuff is hard and frustrating when internally you've moved on, I get that, I do it too. Both as a consumer of free APIs like this and in my day job where there's obviously money involved too. But even with a free API like Strava's there is value for both sides, without that value at least one side wouldn't even be there. If you want to take advantage of that value in the long-term. there is an underlying agreement you don't screw each other over. If you do play these unprofessional games then don't expect people to be happy about it, don't expect them to be understanding, and don't expect them to work with you again.

I'm not arguing against making changes if they need to made. I'm arguing against arrogant and/or lazy companies that screw people over when they implement their changes in this way. These companies can do better and so we should call them out on it.

Re: Strava cuts off leaderboard for free users, reduces third party apps

#97

Post by jhrmnn »

sorenjan wrote: post #77
appleiigs wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But i don’t think they’d be as popular without being free. I have a Garmin watch which has an app, iPhone has fitness tracking built in. Nike has a free app. The list of competitors goes on and on. Now that they have network effects and switching costs (all my historical data), time to squeeze and monetize.

> switching costs (all my historical data) You can use Tapiriik[0] to sync your Strava data with other services, including exporting them to a Dropbox folder. At least I think it will still work after this. [0] https://tapiriik.com/

You can easily export all the raw data (fit/gpx files) directly from the Strava website, without giving access to any 3rd party.

Re: Strava cuts off leaderboard for free users, reduces third party apps

#98

Post by pluies »

nradov wrote: post #91
avs733 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope this at least solves the people 'gps bombing' certain popular segments with fake times. I use all three of those apps you mentioned and generally here is how I frame them: TrainingPeaks - analytics, record keeping, tracking improvement, interacting with my running coach, planning build up to events, making notes to self about training. (Training and planning) Garmin Connect - where I record, check data, and ha…

Many of the popular Strava segments are a total joke, full of obvious fakes or mistakes. They claim to automatically flag suspicious activities but I still see so many that can't possibly be correct. I doubt Strava is even using any ML technology to catch those.

You don't even need ML for that - if someone ran a segment twice as fast as the olympic record for that distance, it's pretty obviously wrong... And yet, that happens pretty regularly for segments I look at.

Re: Strava cuts off leaderboard for free users, reduces third party apps

#99

Post by subpixel »

floatingatoll wrote: post #8

This is a great example of why it’s important to charge money for things up front, rather than later on. If they’d charged for these features from day 1, this could have been a glowing article about how their revenue model has helped them support feature development and build a third-party app ecosystem. They should have charged for it sooner.

As a non-competitive runner Strava has two value propositions for me: find routes, and share my updates.

Neither of these should ever have been free because now I will jump ship before I will pay for them.

Re: Strava cuts off leaderboard for free users, reduces third party apps

#100

Post by runwerks »

randomstring wrote: post #85

I'm a long time Strava user, I have a four digit user id. Except for the year I won a free subscription for a year, I've always paid for the service. I'm a data nerd and cyclist. This change in Strava's policy makes me very sad because it's clear they are managing it poorly and Strava might die as a result. Who could step in to fill the void? Garmin? No, they're just terrible at anything other than collecting raw GPS…

I'm a four digit user id as well and have been paying since they first offered it.

While I plan to stick it out with Strava, I'd also like to explore any new apps out there that might take its place. Got any ideas of other apps out there?

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