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Peloton to charge $95 activation fee for used bikes

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131–140 of 172 posts

Re: Peloton to charge $95 activation fee for used bikes

#131

Bought a Peloton used on FB marketplace. I only use the "just ride" functionality and train with a separate heart rate monitor. Looks like I can't connect it to the internet or else they'll even take that away. Might need to just rip out the wifi chip.

I have the Bowflex equivalent to the Peloton, and they charge $120/year for the classes. I did it for one year, and realized I almost never actually did the classes, just the free built-in training sessions. I didn't renew the next year for that reason.

Re: Peloton to charge $95 activation fee for used bikes

#132
Man, I didn't realize how desperate they must have been. I interviewed with them once in 2020, didn't get an offer, and I was a bit disappointed.

It sounds like I dodged a bullet with them; if nothing else I'd probably be fired for calling their leadership fucking morons.

Re: Peloton to charge $95 activation fee for used bikes

#133
post #46

They are losing money still so desparate moves like this I guess make sense, but adding friction to the new subscriber workflow just seems wild. There's a reason why just about every subscription out there offers free trials/discounted first months. It's to get you in the door. It's not even as if the bike is disabled when bought used, you can just use it like any other spin bike happily. This ONLY effects people who…

> It's not even as if the bike is disabled when bought used, you can just use it like any other spin bike happily. While that’s true, a Peloton attracts a premium price above regular spin bikes. So if you had no intention of using the software you’d just buy a cheaper bike. If you do intend to use it you now have to add $95 to whatever price you’re paying.

You'd be surprised, they go for like $300 used, easy in many markets. I like it for the overal quality. I tried the sunni, and whatever brand was high on the amazon affiliated marketing stuff (ew right) but the peloton works fine.

I also do like how the LCD is basically a vesa mount so you, and well, I did swap in a normal LCD but you can also jailbreak the android os there too.

And you can also buy the newer bigger screen to put on an older bike.

The metrics to me are a bit meh, I get it, but the hardware itself is sturdy and any real cyclist will be doing/using strava.

But new, yes there is a premium and I don't see it worth it at all.

Re: Peloton to charge $95 activation fee for used bikes

#134
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> autonomy over what enters into your mouth This is incredibly underrated. Basically I lost weigth by focusing on this first. then exercising became easier. YMMV, but one thing that helped me control food intake was meditation, for a lot of us, over-eating is a response to anxiety.

That’s also how I lost most of my weight. Sure, you could spend 25-45 minutes on the treadmill… or you could just not eat 5 Oreo cookies, and you would achieve the same result (from a caloric perspective). My best tip for not eating junk food: Don’t buy it. It’s so much easier to eat chicken and rice when you don’t have a bag of Doritos on standby.

I think the most important role of excercise on the weigh loss journey is the sense of accomplishment and effort. Whenever you’re tempted to eat some junk you’ll remember the body pains, the sweat you dropped and think: is it really worth to eat that?

Re: Peloton to charge $95 activation fee for used bikes

#135
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, just the idea of paying for a subscription to ride a stationary bike is wild.

>the idea of paying for a subscription to ride a stationary bike You're not. Like was said above, you can ride it as a stationary bike for free. You're paying for the video content put out by Peloton which is added to daily, like a tv station. I can't help sounding like a sales person at this point but I'd also point out you get access to all their old content plus the fact that all this content is tied directly to y…

I have no idea how peloton works but I while ago I thought about “gamified” cardio machines, treadmill, bike, rowing where you follow courses which vary in difficulty (like uphill or against currents) and the machine varies the resistance according to the scenery.

Re: Peloton to charge $95 activation fee for used bikes

#136
post #97

If I did a push-up for every product that has “revolutionized” the fitness world in the last several decades, you would see my body and probably assume that I had used those products. If you have a floor, a wall, and autonomy over what enters into your mouth, then you already have everything you need to gain muscle and lose fat. Nobody needs a $1400 bike with a $40 monthly subscription to maintain a calorie deficit.…

> a $1400 bike with a $40 monthly subscription

My gym costs $60 a month and gives me access to classes and other equipment. At the cost of a Peloton, a Peloton bike by itself would not pay for itself comparatively for 24 months. That doesn't take into consideration tax on the bike purchase or the monthly subscription. Folks really willing to pay that much money just to not leave their house?

Re: Peloton to charge $95 activation fee for used bikes

#137
post #97

If I did a push-up for every product that has “revolutionized” the fitness world in the last several decades, you would see my body and probably assume that I had used those products. If you have a floor, a wall, and autonomy over what enters into your mouth, then you already have everything you need to gain muscle and lose fat. Nobody needs a $1400 bike with a $40 monthly subscription to maintain a calorie deficit.…

> autonomy over what enters into your mouth This is incredibly underrated. Basically I lost weigth by focusing on this first. then exercising became easier. YMMV, but one thing that helped me control food intake was meditation, for a lot of us, over-eating is a response to anxiety.

> for a lot of us, over-eating is a response to anxiety

100%. We use food as entertainment. To get a dopamine hit from fats and carbs.

For most of human history, food was scarce. We evolved to get huge dopamine hits from food. Our brain sees starving as a danger. It's only post WWII that food became abundant.

Now those signals work against us.

Re: Peloton to charge $95 activation fee for used bikes

#138
post #2

shameless

It's a for-profit corporation, I'm not sure shame is useful concept when reasoning about its behavior. It also reminds me of the fable about the frog and the scorpion.

In that case, maybe we need a new word to describe businesses that are entirely VC-subsidized , then IPO with their books deep in the red and then start enacting anti-consumer policies because they're "for-profit".

Re: Peloton to charge $95 activation fee for used bikes

#139
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the idea of paying for a subscription to ride a stationary bike You're not. Like was said above, you can ride it as a stationary bike for free. You're paying for the video content put out by Peloton which is added to daily, like a tv station. I can't help sounding like a sales person at this point but I'd also point out you get access to all their old content plus the fact that all this content is tied directly to y…

This is such a weird thing, paying to see scenery when riding your stationary bike and then post on the social network, when you can just go out with friends and bike for real in the nature.

It's over 100 right now where I am. It's 72 degrees in the gym.

Re: Peloton to charge $95 activation fee for used bikes

#140
post #97

If I did a push-up for every product that has “revolutionized” the fitness world in the last several decades, you would see my body and probably assume that I had used those products. If you have a floor, a wall, and autonomy over what enters into your mouth, then you already have everything you need to gain muscle and lose fat. Nobody needs a $1400 bike with a $40 monthly subscription to maintain a calorie deficit.…

> autonomy over what enters into your mouth This is incredibly underrated. Basically I lost weigth by focusing on this first. then exercising became easier. YMMV, but one thing that helped me control food intake was meditation, for a lot of us, over-eating is a response to anxiety.

> over-eating is a response to anxiety

Not always. Sometimes things are just tasty.

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