Earlier this month, Strava, the popular fitness tracking app, released its annual “Year in Sports” summary: a cute, animated series of graphics summarizing each user's athletic performance.
But this year, for the first time, Strava has made this feature available only to subscription users ($80 per year), rather than making it free for everyone, as has historically been the case since the review's debut in 2016.
This decision has left many Strava users in turmoil, especially those who have been enjoying the app's social encouragement features. A Strava user in India, Shobhit Srivastava, 'begged' Strava to 'please show the plebs their Year in Sports too'. He later explained to Ars that having this little animated video is more than just a collection of raw numbers.
“When someone makes a video of you and your achievements and tells you that these are the people who were right behind you, motivated you, cheered for you – that feeling means a lot to me!” he said by email.
Strava spokesperson Chris Morris declined to answer Ars' specific questions about why the decision to put Year in Sport behind a paywall was made now.
Other users think Strava is getting a bit too greedy. Dominik Sklyarov, a founder of an Estonian startup, wrote on
Meanwhile, Reddit user “andrewthesailor” commented: “Well they want me to pay to look at the data I gave them (power, [heart rate] etc). And the subscription is not that cheap, especially when you consider that you also pay with your data.”
Sana Ajani, a business student at the University of Chicago, told Ars that she used to be a premium member but is no longer one.
“I noticed the Year in Sport and was a little annoyed that I couldn't unlock it,” she said in an email. “I expected some general stats for everyone and additional stats for subscribers. Year in Review type stuff is great content and distribution for most apps because everyone shares it on social media, so I'm surprised Strava limits its reach by only letting paid subscribers see it.”
