Here I thought yesterday was going to be a peaceful random July Thursday morning. Nothing but Italian chirping birds at the Giro Rosa, and catching the Tour de France later in the afternoon on TV. Turns out, Strava had different plans for it.
You see, yesterday morning Strava sent out an e-mail to users of Relive (aka Relive.cc). You may have seen this app here or there, but essentially it allowed you to connect your Strava account (or other platform, including Garmin) to Relive and they’d generate a small movie of your workout including photos and such. It was nifty and there were plenty of users (as so evidenced by my packed inbox with upset users this morning). The company says they have millions of non-Strava users, plus the now non-existent Strava users.
For those not familiar, here’s basically what it created – using my ride two days ago in the Italian Alps:
Relive ‘Italian Distraction’
Cool stuff, huh?
Yup – and Strava thought so too, as in fact over the years Strava hosted the company for events, and Strava employees used Relive too. As did other platforms and companies too of course, since it was nifty. Visuals and data go together well, and usually resonate widely on social media. Win-win. Or not, as Relive found out the hard way yesterday.
After discussing the situation with both sides yesterday and again today, I’ve got a pretty clear picture of what’s going on. Hang on, it’s a wild ride.
The Tides Turn:
It all started with an early morning (European time) e-mail from Strava to Relive users. While the first few words started off nice, it quickly took a turn for darker sides. It was phrased in such a way that implied Relive had done something horrible, dirty even:
“Many of us at Strava have enjoyed using Relive over the last few years, but because of Relive’s recent updates, unfortunately, we have decided to end this integration. The current version of Relive violates several of the terms that we ask of API partners. These terms are in place to safeguard your personal information, to ensure a level playing field for all our partners, and to protect what makes Strava unique. We’ve worked hard with Relive to try to fix this, but they have ultimately chosen not to make the changes needed to honor their agreement. So as of today, Strava will no longer send your activities to Relive for playback.
Rest assured, nothing’s changed about how your information is stored or the control you have over how it’s accessed by API partners. And we remain deeply committed to helping our many API partners build experiences that make your workouts and races even better.
As always, thanks for being a part of the Strava community,
The Strava Team
Of course, Relive then publicly posted a response– complete with SpongeBob meme. Ultimately a variant of ‘Strava got drunk, and is now ghosting us, help?’.
About this point you’re thinking to yourself: OK, so what, Strava and a 3rd party app are having a disagreement. Why do I (or you) care?
Well, the nuance of what they’re disagreeing about is actually super fascinating. Strava says that Relive violated their API terms of service. Their API being the development hooks that thousands of developers leverage, including companies likes Garmin, Suunto, Zwift, Trailforks, Polar and many others. There are numerous legal conditions/rules in there – some of them obvious (variants of ‘do no harm’), but some of them less well-meaning and more anti-competitive.
To begin, the first condition that Strava states Relive has violated is the following:
“2b Strava reserves the right to revoke your API Token or terminate or limit any uses of the Strava API Materials if you violate this Agreement or we otherwise object to your use of the Strava API Materials, including but not limited to, uses that enable virtual races or competitions and uses that replicate Strava sites, services or products”
The bold part is the bit Strava’s upset about, and translated to simple human English: Don’t do anything that we already have as a feature.
(I’ll point out the fact that almost every fitness/developer site/app already does that, for things like distance/speed/elevation/etc… all technically Strava features that are being duplicated.)
So what Strava feature is that which Strava disagrees with and believes violates their ToS? The ability to have a social feed.
Yup, for real.
But wait – Strava says that Relive actually broke two term items here, with the second one being:
“2.k.iv You may not process Strava Data, including in an aggregated or de-identified manner, for the purposes of, including but not limited to, analytics, analyses, customer insights generation, and products or services improvements. Strava Data may not be combined with other customer data, for these or any other purposes.”
Now this is where things get whacky. Basically Strava actually says in their terms of services that you can’t do analytics on their data (side note: It’s not ‘their data’, it’s your data…but we’ll come back to that in a second). That’s a funny distinction since those are – I kid you not – literally some of the same category names (e.g. Analysis) they use for their 3rd party app showcase/landing page:
But apparently that’s not actually what got Relive in trouble on this particular bullet point. Rather, it was the last portion of that sentence:
“Strava Data may not be combined with other customer data, for these or any other purposes.”
What Strava is saying here is that you can’t take data via the Strava API and then show it (or combine it) with other 3rd party data. In the case of Relive, that means that Strava doesn’t want them also supporting uploads from Garmin, Polar, Suunto, etc, because then that combines the data from other sources.
Which is somewhat funny – because ironically enough, that’s actually exactly what platform giant Trailforks does (oh, and you can do analytics too):
The Trailforks Strava API integration allows you to pull in your Strava activities, add them to your profile whereby other users can follow you and your activities, browse them, – even get badges as seen below.
And what about the requirement for combining with other customer data? Oh, no problem – Trailforks does that too. You can upload routes outside of Strava, as well as activities. And heck, Trailforks even goes a step further violating the API than Relive by making that available for usage stats and analytics (harkening back to the previous item). All while doing so in an astoundingly clear flow chart on their own site (see above).
Realistically, I could keep finding these examples. After all, I’ve only spent about 45 minutes on this post at this point, and I’ve got a pile of big and small 3rd party apps alike that theoretically broke these same rules.
The real reason I suspect is that Strava somehow sees Relive as a threat. Perhaps they are, but in reality I suspect they aren’t. They’re just a small 3rd party app that wanted to add some common social features that Strava definitely didn’t pioneer. After all, it’s those specific social features that pushed Strava over the line, once Relive rolled them out last week. All of the rest of the customer data combining and analytic bits have been around for years on Relive without any Strava problem.
In fact, Strava even hosted Relive at Strava HQ two summers ago for a 3-day event. And their VP of marketing has also called Relive ‘the best use of Strava’s API to date’. At the time of the HQ visit, Relive already had other 3rd party data connections including Garmin, Endomondo, and Polar.
As for the back and forth in communications that both sides claim? Well, both are correct, just saying it differently. Strava gave some warnings last week, and Relive offered to rollback functionality. But apparently that wasn’t quite good enough, with Strava requiring additional terms that Relive couldn’t agree too. It’s unclear why Strava required additional terms if Relive rolled back the social functionality for Strava users.
No Strava, it’s not your data:
But I want to circle back to something you see over and over again in the Strava API terms of service, which are these two words: “Strava Data”
This term ostensibly refers to may things. It can and does include Strava Segments, Leaderboards, shoe types, device types, and of course – activity uploads. In the case of Relive, they weren’t using any of those things except the last, which is ‘Activity Uploads’.
But the problem is those workout files are actually your data. It’s the data you generate when you upload a workout file to Strava’s platform. In the case of Garmin devices that’s a .FIT file, from Polar a .TCX file, and so on. Ultimately, it’s your data. GDPR enforces that as well, and Strava’s same ToS even notes that too.
But Strava as a group seems to forget that.
In the case of Relive, that was my workout upload. I did that on a Garmin device and then would have uploaded it to the Strava platform. Then, using Strava’s API, Relive would have accessed my track data and generated a pretty little video based on my data. See what I did there: It’s not ‘Strava data’, it’s ‘my data’. They didn’t use segments or leaderboards or my shoe type. Just my track, and only my track.
I say that – because it seems like Strava’s forgetting that. It seems like they’re forgetting that this is ultimately data you create and you authorize these apps to use in ways that you’ve approved. That’s the entire point of the API, and by and large 3rd party apps do fantastic things. Thousands of app developers have created incredible apps – highlighted in their 3rd party app directory. But again – when I sign on to authorize an app (using the standard authorization page you’ve seen countless times), I’m saying that ‘Yes, I want the app to do that’.
And that’s where it appears Strava seems to misunderstand the definition of ‘Strava data’. At that point I’m saying ‘Yes, I want you to use my data that happens to be on Strava’s platform to create a nifty movie’. Again – it’s my data, and according to GDPR I’m in control of my data. Strava is merely a temporary holder of it, not unlike a bank.
Going Forward:
The challenge here for Strava and their apps is really twofold. For app developers, it’s the reality that Strava re-interpret their terms the moment they feel threatened. At least if you’re small. It’s the exact same story that played out last summer with Strava Live Segments, where now smaller GPS device manufacturers (e.g. not Garmin or Wahoo) have to pay Strava a licensing fee for usage of the Strava Live Segments functionality in their devices. It’s why you’ve seen that feature dry up over the past 12 months in newer devices on the market. Because Strava relies on companies like Garmin to convert paid Strava Summit subscriptions using their devices, Strava can’t actually pressure Garmin. Garmin would laugh in their faces.
But for Strava itself it’s that they keep tripping on stuff they needn’t trip on. One only need to look at social media yesterday to see how badly Strava lost in the social media game. They may have thrown the first legal punch, but they got badly beaten by meme’s and the reality of frustrated users calling Strava a bully.
And while Strava’s changes a year ago around renaming Premium to Summit were probably good for the company, they were ridiculed in the comments section for the name, with most users saying a variant of ‘How about developing features instead?’. Which they did back in January.
For the first time in years they developed a new Strava finger-dragging route creation feature, only to have reality strike a few days day later when it was learned they actually painstakingly duplicated a 3rd party app (complete with IP logs showing Strava HQ, Bourne Identity style). And now here we are a year after Strava announced Summit – with yet still no new features. Instead, we’ve just got lawyers from Strava protecting turf that isn’t actually theirs to protect.
It’s thus somewhat ironic that Strava’s own breakup letter to Relive users actually sums it all up the best: “Rest assured, nothing’s changed about how your information is stored or the control you have over how it’s accessed by API partners.”
However, it’s missing the next line to complete it and make it more accurate. So I’ll finish it for them: “Ultimately, what’s changed is that we sat down and decided that instead of creating new features for you as Strava users, we’d spend that time on removing functionality from the greater Strava ecosystem.”
Seems about right.
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I just find it ridiculous that Strava is restricting data to a 3rd party platform… When that’s exactly what they are!
If Garmin pulled this same stunt and stopped letting Strava activities being uploaded via Garmin Express etc, then they’d be right down the pan!
Bingo
Came here to say exactly that – I sync my Garmin workouts with Strava by they are private by default.
Last night rather than make my Strava workout public, I simply shared my Garmin Connect link.
It’s a fine line that Strava is walking and they can be made redundant pretty easily.
Exactly what I was going to type. Garmin could crush Strava.
And you know what? This forced monopoly-monopoly dysfunctional relationship (Garmin: monopoly of devices, Strava: monopoly of sports-social) is not serving consumers anymore.
Ray, I think you did great service to the community with calling out both Garmin and their bad software practices in your previous post as well as Strava and this API fiasco.
Personally, I do hope that some Silicon Valley startup comes along and shakes up this complacent space …
Great post, Ray. Makes me want to ditch Strava altogether. . .
+1 on the instant urge to ditch Strava.
I already canceled my Summit membership; though not for the reasons in this article; I just wasn’t using the features enough anymore.
I have been considering dropping Strava completely and this may push me over that edge.
Same boat, I switched to Xert, it has better stats anyways, and as my wife likes to tell me…I don’t really like people so the social aspect of Strava is lost on me.
I just started the process of closing my Strava account, this is is asinine, like Oracle stating you can patent an API.
I only use Strava as a backup data storage and I’ve never paid a cent to them. And I’m not likely ever to pay them.
+1 on ditching Strava Summit
+1 ditched strava summit, told them what I have, downloaded MY DATA.
+1
+1 Cancelled my Summit membership. Told Strava in their feedback form it was down to their issues with relive and the poor value for money of Summit.
Strava would be smarter to fix some basic issues that people have been complaining about in their “community forum” for years (literally) rather than pick a fight with Relive.
Two issues I struggle with that should be easy to fix: 1) The bug regarding Garmin multisport activities where each sub-activity is incorrectly ported into Strava using its “finish time” as its “start time” jacking up your triathlon and the Flyby feature. 2) Not being able to tag a swim as a “race”.
Things like this may seem trivial, but they matter…at least to me. It opens the door for a competitor to take their fan base…just by doing what they do, but better.
And lap swim import from newer garmin devices has been broken since the fall, with no sign of fixing it! It’s ridiculous.
Not to mention that the features/support for swimming activities in Strava are laughable. That made me cancel my premium.
Commute filtering from the feed has been asked for for years now, yet crickets.
Trail run as an activity…now that would be novel for Strava.
I feel like it’s a bad sign when, instead of rolling out new features, a company gets litigious. It reminds me of TiVo – once a pioneer, they have rested on their laurels and lawyers to remain afloat, all the while non-conventional players have turned the market upside down (hello YoutubeTV with DVR everywhere, or Amazon Fire Cube). In addition to not innovating themselves, they are preventing others within the industry from innovating as well.
I don’t think Strava has that kind of pull, but I also don’t see any competitors that have the kind of critical mass that Strava has in terms of user base.
I agree. They only come out of this looking like assholes. And if they don’t care about that, but care that they won some petty legal argument, they’re not going to be around for the long term. It doesn’t wash with people these days.
Yesterday I canceled my Summit subscription Strava. As you say, it’s MY DATA and I’ll do with it whatever I want. This has been my first move, but then maybe I just close my Strava account.
The only real use are the segments, which are bloated of wrong times anyway (that we, the users, have to manually mark for them).
They have not added any other functionality, and they don’t seem to be interested in doing so.
The Relive “issue” has been the reminder for me to cancel my subscription. Farewell!
Exactly Eddie! It doesn’t seem hard to have an algorithm to help flag and clean obvious issues with segment leaderboards.
I think I’ll cancel my Summit subscription after this. It’s worrying how they see themselves and how they want to control my data. As for Relive? I’ve just link it to Garmin instead, where the activity originated. Well played Strava; you successfully shot yourself in the foot here. ?
Wonderful and deep article Ray. I just moved from Fitbit to Polar so I can link Relive directly to Polar. I’m now cancelling my Premium membership. I wonder if it is possible to do something more, through GDPR, versus their ownership of our data.
My tapiirik synch has also been prevented by Strava, is this another example of the like?
I have been wondering about the same thing with tapiirik. Just stopped working and doesn’t appear to be coming back online anytime soon.
On tapiriik’s Twitter feed, users report receiving emails in the last couple days that Strava restored the sync. Expand their June 25th tweet and read the comments.
I made the same point on a post earlier, it’s my data not theirs. Their mail tries to infer that Relive had been abusing data but it’s a smokescreen, They want our data to add value to their platform and I’m happy for them to do so as long as they provide something in return but they have not developed their platform for so long they now have virtually zero differentiation. The tools I use to visualise my data are Veloviewer and occasionally Relive (for special rides). What I did (until yesterday) value was it acting as a device-independent repository of my activities. If I could push my Zwift rides into Garmin Connect Strava would be redundant for me.
You can. Just go into the Zwift app or website and then look under Settings -> Connections. You can then link your Zwift activities to your Garmin account.
The only problem is that for Zwift racing purposes, almost everyone requires the use of Strava. Sigh.
Great summary! Shame on Strava! Also pointing out the double paying: pay via device prices and summit fees for live segments? And then have eBike Cheaters they won’t ban (I’m ignored by the cheater, so I cant see/flag his rides, so he still has the KOMS :P)… was my reason for not subscribing summit… no benefit at all! Then this data ownership “misunderstanding”… I’m so short bevor removing all MY data!
Sascha, you can create a second Strava account used only for flagging. With it, you’ll be able to see (and flag) any activity that’s on a leaderboard.
Wow…the day I find myself caring about silly leaderboards on Strava or any other site, that is the day I take my own life rather than live several more decades of extreme loneliness.
Boom. Exactly this. The older I get, the more I realize how important it is to use my own performance as the yardstick, and how utterly unimportant how fast/slow other people are riding.
Apparently you care so little that you don’t spend any time posting on the internet about it.
Some people enjoy them, it gives them motivation to improve themselves and their fitness and strive harder then they would have otherwise. Why shit on people improving their fitness?
well it seems Wahoo is creating new possibilities: link to twitter.com
Strange move from Strava and it seems to break a lot of built up credit in 24 hrs…..
Heck, they don’t even fix their existing features that are broken for years or UPDATE THEIR BASEMAP, so I can’t create a route over roads that were finished a couple of years ago.
Yeah, it’s frustrating… they stopped updating their map data about a year and a half ago, yet still display an “improve this map” link, which lets you add/fix roads and such, but those updates are ignored by Strava. /-:
Thanks for the post. Strava is getting to big for their britches. Time to ditch them. Hell I’m even paying them $55/yr for their ‘Summit’. What BS.
Another great post, DC!
My annual Strava Summit renewal is coming at the end of the month, I am now reconsidering….
“Another great post, DC!”
+1 Yeah, great. I’d like to see more critical content of this type.
Good summary. I struggle to see how Strava was threatened by the work that Relive does. I use both and like many my allegiance was more solid with Relive on this matter. The core issue may be that Strava’s business model is convincing people to buy into the Summit subscription, but their API integrations largely support achieving many of the Summit features (except for live segments) with external apps. Strava can’t really win here. They can pick fights with API consumers and look like the bully or they can bleed resources and money supporting a multitude of apps that compete with their for-sale product.
I don’t envy Strava’s choices here. My hope is that they can develop a revenue stream sharing demographic cycling data with metropolitan planners. They have an amazing data set about where and how people ride bikes — with some caveats about fitness oriented cycling.
In response to your second sentence, it’s kind of like when Specialized went legal on small bike shop in Canada that used “Roubaix” in its name. They ended up with an omelette on their face and backed down but you had to wonder why they did it. Did they have a whole legal department with absolutely nothing to do except to pick a fight with some small player they know full well they could crush in an instant? I honestly can’t think of anything else. When you read Ray’s account of all the inconsistencies of how and when Strava apply their API usage rules, it’s clearly arbitrary or possibly some sort of public humiliation lesson they felt they needed to teach Relive. Either way, Strava are about to take a very big hit because of hubris. It seems to happen to companies that start believing their own bullshit.
You won’t be on Strava’s christmas card list this year 🙂
And that’s why we love Ray and trust his reviews. He’s not in the pockets of the companies and his integrity is his reputation.
Paid up through 11/2020. I want a refund.The software is stuck in cement and I don’t need to help finance their bully tactic BS business model. Now if I can figure out my way through the clunky support system.
I suggest eveyone raises a support request on strava to express their disapproval and summit members stop their subscription.
I’ve cancelled my renewal. Then I connected Relive directly to Garmin.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yup and with that I cancelled my summit subscription.unfortunately I’m fully paid up till February so they won’t feel the immediate pinch from the few of us that aren’t on monthly subscriptions
Same boat
Strongly considering closing out my Strava account. I really don’t like the direction they are headed, and find it very concerning when they refer to my data as “their data”.
I wish a 3rd party app would make the Strava Fitness and Freshness curves usable on a mobile device. I’m on Summit and when I signed up, that was one of their big feature pushes, but you can only use it in a browser, and that’s very cumbersome and slow to do on a mobile device. It’s been on their “suggestions” list for as long as the feature has existed.
Started using Strava again this year after a long hiatus and have not been impressed with the minor changes. Just canceled Summit today as the features were pretty lacking vs Training Peaks or Golden Cheetah. The Relive incident was just the icing on the cake for me. Litigious and lazy is not a recipe for business success if you are not a government regulated monopoly.
Never been a Strava user and this solidifies it: I never will.
Another cancel here. Strava posts every workout from garmin including weightlifting, etc…no way to filter this. Their tone deaf response is it’s not on schedule to change. How hard is it to give me an option to only transfer gps activities? Nope, gotta delete it before my friends feeds are polluted by my morning strength workout being translated into a morning ride or whatever. How about making your own social features better – quit worrying someone else.
If you usually edit your activities (title, description, etc) then you might consider making all activities Private by default. Then when you go to edit your GPS activities, set them to visible by Everyone. It’s just an extra tap or two. The workout activities will stay Private without having to be touched.
If this is the way Strava wants to run their business, so be it. I’m done sending my Garmin data to Strava. I’m also closing ny account so they don’t get the benefit of having a (inaccurate) larger user base than they should have
So I wonder how long till Veloviewer gets axed.
The moment they axe Veloviewer or the Elevate browser plugin I’ll cancel my Strava account. Line in the sand and all that.
Summit subscription removed, paid subscriber since 2015. Was happy to support all these years but it feels like the company is now being run by business types, lawyers and accountants. I didn’t even use Relive!
I signed up for premium features with Strava last week – not because I use it much but I like the segment functionality on my new Garmin 830.
Just sent them an email to cancel the subscription.
Oh, I also just signed up for Relive via Garmin…
Meh…I treat Strava the same as I treat Relive. They both get MY data from Garmin Connect.
perfect analytics
“Instead, we’ve just got lawyers from Strava protecting turf that isn’t actually theirs to protect.”
+1
This is what happens when corporate lawyers make business decisions.
“This is what happens when corporate lawyers make business decisions.”
+1
Sincerely,
A corporate lawyer
Strava’s “killer app” has always been segment leaderboards (there are lots of alternatives for its social and workout tracking functionality) and the relevance of leaderboards will become increasingly diminished by the ubiquity of eBikes and resulting inability to keep the segment playing field “level”. By discouraging new functionality that 3rd party integrations enable, Strava is pointing itself in the direction of irrelevance.
I think if enough people cancel Strava Summit, Strava will go hungry and change it’s name to Starva
The whole debacle has reminded me I pay a summit subscription. I really liked the Relive integration. Summit subscription just cancelled!
I just cancelled my Summit subscription, Strava will get no more $$$ from me.
Relive’s posts on Twitter are stupid. Seems they are not taking it seriously, just posting some silly memes instead. Why would you trust them with your data?
Serious, not-very-cheerful guy here.
Memes and silly jokes connect easily with the general public.
Strava seems like a deadman walking, lawyeringup instead of innovating. Someone else above in the comments mentioned TiVo, and that is the first company I thought of, too. I expect 5 years from now we’ll all be saying, “Remember when I had a Strava segment running record and then that guy rode his bike around, ripping all of the segments in one area, setting multiple running World Records that the software should have flagged? Whatever happened to them? Oh, out of business? You don’t say. Sad”
🙂
Interesting side note. I use a Virtual Personal Training app called Vi. (getvi.com). While the Vi App itself tracks your runs, it does have Strava integration – or at least it did. It stopped working a few weeks ago (although Vi claimed it was fixed). I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but reading into the events of the past few days, the sync breaks happened shortly after Vi ran it’s second 5k for its users. I wonder if this is now the new pattern for Strava,
I also switched to Strava a few years back from Endomondo because once UA bought Endomondo, I don’t think they’ve added any features to the app. At that time I thought Strava was moving forward, but I would agree that it seems to have stagnated.
I still find it odd that in 2019, I pay $60/year for a service that can’t show me a list of my top 10 5k times.
> I wonder if this is now the new pattern for Strava,
This three months ago.
link to segmentchallenge.com
To be fair, the Terms of Service for the Strava API have always been troubling and onerous, so that isn’t exactly new. Apps that didn’t read or fully understand the impact that enforcing the ToS would have on their business model (or didn’t plan for it) should have known better… “Move Fast and Break Things” and all that nonsense.
It’s not totally obvious if the enforcement is actually new, or most of the terminated API partners are just small potatoes we never hear about. It probably is also related to the staff that is in charge at the moment, which in VC companies can change quickly.
This from SIX years ago.
link to schiffner.com
Adios Strava. Don’t forget to have them delete all your data in regard of GDPR.
“One only need to look at social media yesterday to see how badly Strava lost in the social media game … they got badly beaten by meme’s and the reality of frustrated users calling Strava a bully.” That’s what I was noticing a lot when reading through on Twitter and Facebook. Strava was very very silent; meanwhile Relive was posting lots of follow up memes, gifs, etc. supporting/thanking all the people who were posting. At first I thought it was a little juvenile, but then it struck me how they were interacting with people, and the people would remember that. It’s probably a generational thing but I could see how the younger, growing audience would relate better to that. (did I just call myself old?? 😉 )
Wow! Interesting story here and more telling about Strava than I had ever known. Knocked them down a few more pegs in my eyes and only reinforce my removal of payment for services.
Thanks for the research and analysis, Ray.
Strava is only useful for the social elements and segments…everything else is duplicated in Garmin Connect. They need to put more of their energy into developing their platform and less into nonsense legal manoeuvring.
I’m not happy with Strava for other reasons. I did cancel my yearly premium subscription. It is a shame. We are all in the same game. Some ego person at Strava wanted to flex their muscle. I want a better, more accurate calorie burned count based only heart beat.
worried too for veloviewer and elevate
I thought the same about Veloviewer. A number of pro teams use it so I expect that provides a degree of air cover.
Nailed it Ray as always, unlike the horrible Facebook data leak, I GAVE Strava permission to let Relive have MY data, I refuse to give money to Strava anymore, I have just cancelled my Summit membership, instead I will take out a premium subscription to Relive (been thinking about this for a while anyway) and upload my rides manually, this is corporate bullying at its worst (GPLama and Peloton springs to mind)
I quit syncing my Garmin data to Strava earlier this year. Cancelled paid account over a year ago.
To me there is no value add with Strava. With Connect and Training Peaks I have all I need.
Relive is cool and I have used it a few times and will again. They arent the problem here, Strava us acting like asses.
I now need to make sure my account is fully removed from Strava….who knows what they are doing with MY data today.
Relive does use more than just the track from Strava that they could also get via Garmin or an upload.
They are using the activity title and images from the track. I use that all the time to not have to use the Relive UI.
Does that mean they are right to cancel Relive? No, obviously not.
This reminds me of the early iPhone days. I really thought about getting into the whole ecosystem and create apps for IOS.
But then Apple created all kind of rules, like not allowing apps where already an Apple version already existed (music players, podcatchers, … ). They were throwing out apps from the appstore for silly reasons and didn’t allow side loading. I gave completely up on the Apple world at that point.
Who wants to work with a partner who can destroy your business model from one day to the next.
I am also cancelling my Summit today. Let’s see if it makes a difference.
Also: Relive is brilliant! I am just going to use Garmin for the sync.
Posted this at Strava, expect them to reject it.
‘It must be a temporary flaw, the brake between Strava & Relive. It was such a huge plus, this partnership, making it possible to create video Google 3d satellite + photo’s + track data on the fly.
So now we will export the track, or just leave Strave, for the track is mine, not Strava’s property.
Please explain why the 2 of you broke up, truthfully, since the only reason I can comeup with to stay at Strava because Strava is building it’s own Relive, correct?’
But Strava is not creating anything as we all know.
So, quitting strava is best thing to do
I canceled my Strava subscription a while ago and I don’t miss any feature. Most the analysis can be done in other platforms (most of them free) and the fact it doesn’t handle multi-sport properly (they create multiple individual activities instead of one) was enough for me to say bye bye. I’m a huge fan of Relive and I’m glad my account is connected through Garmin, not Strava.
Ray, having personal interactions directly with Strava, what do feel would be the best course of action as a user to communicate disapproval with their overall actions/stance and assumptions that my data is their data? Of course, I can just “vote with my feet” and cancel Summit, but do you have thoughts on the best way to communicate to maximize the possibility of effecting change? Perhaps social media is best to create pressure, but I’ve never liked the Twitter/Yelp wars.
Just linked relive to garmin connect directly
Strava can swing
Just cancelled my next Summit renewal for December. I have been a paying Strava subscriber since October 2014. This was the last straw really, the lack of innovation, the inability to customise basic things like power zones. I’ll probably keep sending my data there for now but I can see myself ending this in the near future. There are other platforms like SportsTracks.mobi that have great analysis and I can share my ride to facebook if I want bragging rights
This article captured my frustrations perfectly. Strava acting as though they have our interests at heart and yet all they did was move to try and kill off competition.
As Ray says it’s my data, it’s taken from Garmin and I should be allowed to choose how it is represented and Relive was what I chose. It’s not up to Strava to choose for me.
I would rather Strava got on and fixed some of the long running problems with data duplication rather than waste time on limiting their ecosystem which Relive was enhancing for them.
Deleted my strava account awhile ago. Honestly didn’t see the point besides giving kudos and receiving them from people. Never paid for any of the services. Honestly find it annoying because people post links to activities but you can’t view them fully without an account. They want to accept all the data but they don’t want you exporting or analyzing it elsewhere. I simply use garmin and a google drive sheet for my log.
I fully agreed it’s our data not Strava’s, but it is Strava’s API platform and infrastructure being used to store and expose it. They’re fully within their rights to control who uses their tools and what they use them for. If you want to give your data to another party such as Relive, then you’re within your rights to do so, but why should Strava foot the infrastructure bill for you doing so unless it benefits them?
I agree, but that’s not the pretence they’ve made this move on. They say it’s about protecting data, but all users have agreed to grant access to Relive and access their data. Relive hasn’t really changed what they’ve been doing at all with the data, other than they added social features to their offering. It’s actually pretty clear that it’s purely about Strava using their dominant market position to crush a smaller player. Fine, they are within their rights to do that legally, but morally…let the people decide.
Pretty sure that Strava is going to release their own version of Relive functionality soon.
My thoughts exactly
If they did it would be the first new feature for *years*. I wouldn’t hold your breath
If Garmin and Wahoo both decide to drop Strava for say, RidewithGPS, Strava is essentially dead. Protectionism is a double-edged sword. Segments leaderboards *were* awesome but have steadily declining value as segments get clogged up with cheaters and impossible KOMs. Without the rides to drive social interaction, there’s no need for Strava. Perhaps some of the Summit users will stick around for a while … until Garmin/Wahoo offer similar features with every bike computer purchase (or SF subscription..)
“segments get clogged up with cheaters and impossible KOMs”
Correct. There’s absolutely zero control on this. There’s a number of running segments near me that have speeds faster than world records, or times only an elite athlete would have. Meanwhile, the person’s other “runs” have been at 10:00/mile pace.
It’s not hard to code in an auto-flagging system that if you go faster than a certain pace, it marks it for manual review. But nope.
I liked Relive but it was just a bit of a gimmick and the novelty wore off quickly. It was quite a cool way of sharing an activity to non-sporty friends on social media though – they don’t really care about pace, effort power etc but a pretty video looks nice.
I do like Strava though – even if I did downgrade some of the Summit features – as it’s a great social platform for athletes. It offers lots of great ways to measure performance and effort and beats Garmin Connect for some things, even though the analytics on swimming suck.
If I want a really good analysis tool I useVeloviewer – a much better way to spend the money that would normally go on the the equivalent Summit pack. it’s also a beautiful example of web development for analytics.
Great post thanks for summarizing this and let’s hope the Strava leadership reads this! I believe your view, that you have written represents thousands of other users — thanks DCR!
Is anybody else thinking Strava is beginning to act a lot like Facebook…. :/ And that’s not a complement!
Thanks, Ray for your analysis – Summit membership now cancelled 🙂
Tapiriik was disconnected too from Strava if anyone here is aware. Or is it just mine?
I noticed this too. Both Strava and Garmin are currently not syncing with Tapiriik. Which is disappointing because I was using Tapiriik to automatically sync my garmin activities to Dropbox, for the inevitable occasion that Strava/Garmin once again try to create a walled garden.
This is a great example of poor (and/or sneaky) contract drafting. They define “Strava Data” in Section 2(f) as “all data you access or collect from the Strava API Materials including but not limited to Strava user personal and activity data and Strava segment and leaderboard data (collectively “Strava Data)”. Then they go on to apply all the use restrictions and obligations to that collective definition when really, some of those obligations or restrictions apply (or should apply) to a subset of those terms. This makes for a great case study!
I only paid for Strava for one year, and that ended almost 2 years ago.
I did just disable the connection between Garmin and Strava, and will consider going back into Strava to delete my data.
The only thing I recall that I liked in there was that it easily compared the same route across multiple runs.
Somewhat of a tangent here. Can someone please explain to me what Relives business model is? I have always assumed that they were somehow collecting / selling data. Are they just as predatory as Strava, just less successful?
I have always thought if was a fair trade off – they can have my data in return for the small smile their movie give me. But, if they are not selling data how do they make their money?
They run a freemium model just like strava and offer a paid upgrade for eleven bucks a month.
link to relive.cc
… think i will see if I can link Relive directly to Garmin.
Well heheh wait Strava, Garmin might pull on your what you’ve done to Relive, as thats the first landing of MY DATA once it comes off my legs and device… My data goes device, Garmin Connect, Strava then uses the Garmin API to get my data… and think I actually push it to Training Peaks also from Strava.
G
it`s just a matter of time before more services dissappear
There is hope. Remember a few years ago, Garmin tried to muscle Strava out to promote Connect. Garmin wisely folded in short order.
i just ended my strava membership. i don’t support this type of business behavior.
“the moment they feels threatened” -> feel
Yeah, haven’t really been pleased with Strava for other reasons (poor support for triathletes, really poor support for swimming in general, ignoring training feature updates in favor of more facebook-y updates, etc.), but this kind of thing pushes me over the edge. Calendared my Summit cancellation.
How does everyone feel about TrainingPeaks’ premium features? Worth it?
Done!
link to support.strava.com
Kinda reminds me of fruit. It was created for the benefit of the producer, not the consumer.
There’s data, analysis and analytics, and then there’s data, analysis and analytics.
Your activity file belongs to you. If Strava takes three individual’s activity files and creates an average, or best time (KOM), heat map, etc., that belongs to them. If a company creates a novel proprietary or patented way to analyze you activity’s heart rate data, power data, speed fluctuations or who knows what, they own that result.
And to delete your content from Strava is difficult…
I am deleting my account now.
Yesterday I wanted to just delete my data (I already disconnected it so I won’t give them new data), but now I am deleting the whole thing.
I wanted to use the social features, because, from an analysis point of view, Strava is garbage (they delete data and consider what they algorithm is “moving time”), but I don’t use that either.
(I also deleted Runkeeper which I didn’t use since like two years ago).
I want something as a fall back when my watch battery dies or something like that. Strava is not even useful for that. Now I use Endomondo, but, sadly, Endomondo doesn’t support Ant+ sensors on Android.
Does anyone know something that does that work?
Did Strava had any new feature in the last two years? Zero, they are stopped in innovation !
Membership canceled and account deleted. Thanks, Ray!
Companies like Strava and Zwift that want to be platforms need to start acting like platforms, and separate out that aspect of their business from the rest.
As a platform, Strava should act as a data storage with a flexible API and solid privacy controls. As an analysis/training platform, Strava should use the same API that everyone else uses, and compete on those merits. There should be a wall between those two functions.
Years ago after a similar Strava flap (IIRC Strava wanted to prevent people from downloading their own data) I set up Tapiriik to constantly pull my data off Strava into dropbox. That integration too has broken recently, for reasons I don’t understand (Tapiriik no longer pulls from Strava or Garmin).
Given that Strava does not seem to be serious about their role as a platform, I’d love for someone else to take up that torch. Just be data storage and privacy controls, and nothing else.
Admittedly I do not think I have ever heard of Relive…but I hate the bullying and tactics. And the good timing as my Summit expires in a few days so I cancelled. I will kill the account after my archive is sent to me. It was great when I rode the road but now that I do the majority of my riding on Rouvy & BKool (occasionally Fulgaz), and Strava will not do segments on those types of rides, why bother?
I always wonder what the Oversight committee (either the BoD or Investors) thinks of these events? Did they know? Did they force management to do the bullying? Some heads should roll for decisions such as these.
Thanks for the post and the push back to Strava. Like many non-EU companies they seem to not have understood the significance of GDPR. It’s our data – end of story. Let’s see what happens after all the negative social media noise.
GDPR is tricksy around data which has been converted into new formats by computer processes, which the Strava API is, as well as legitimate interest provisions.
This should be seen more as an ethical stumble rather than a legal one. There may be ethical differences between EU and non-EU companies; I can’t say.
Not a lawyer!! 🙂
No it’s not. GDPR is very explicit and changing formats makes zero difference at all, neither does the way the data is processed or who/what does that processing. It doesn’t even care whether data is on a computer or paper. GDPR isn’t even that long of a document and it’s very clear that users own their own data with no exceptions.
Perhaps the Strava lawyers would have been better spending some time reading that rather than doing this nonsense. It would be very simple to burn a new trail into the global heatmap, demand the right to be forgotten and then see if that trail is still visible. If it is, the fine is large enough that Strava will be gone overnight. That’s the other thing in GDPR, the fines were purposefully set high enough to scare companies. It’s unlikely anyone would survive a full GDPR whipping.
I’m afraid you’re woefully misinformed mate. Peep the legal analysis articles on this for more info. Cheers!
Are Relive complying with the GDPR?
I’m definitely not misinformed, having read it several times and helped numerous companies become compliant. Processing data doesn’t change ownership, and giving data to third party data processors simply adds to the number of parties needing to be compliant.
Yep this was the reminder for me to stop paying Strava for their service. I have been a paying member since 2014 and have cancelled due to the lack of innovation and this petty move.
I think that it’s called – BULLYING.
Is Elevate in danger? The crank data pretty much…
I don’t know, seems like a lot of mobbing going on here. Strava is a one of a kind app that handles a tremendous amount of traffic and has to appeal to an extremely wide global user base of which a vast majority are too cheap to pay for the value they get. If I had to weigh the choice of Strava or relive in terms of benefits to human endeavor I’d not hesitate to choose Strava. Relive is a gimmick. Strava didn’t handle the communication very well but it still has significant value not only to me but to cyclists everywhere. I’m in no way harmed by the divorce here, if relive held any value for me I could go direct to their site.
E
As a consumer, mobbing/cancelling accounts is the only tool we have. Instead of increasing the value of their property, Strava wants to lock out or bully perceived competitors. Maybe, as suggested somewhere in this thread, Strava is coming out with their version and want to lock competitors out instead of competing…hmmm shades of Microsoft or Google or Apple or….?
It would help if you quoted the EULA for Strava users that deals with the question of data ownership. My understanding is that normally any content you upload to a 3rd party service becomes legally theirs. This is a very tricky legal area though, so I would be curious to see what Strava’s agreement looks like (and I am a lazy bastard not willing to look it up myself).
Under GDPR, you still own your own data (which is the piece we are talking about here). Given Strava has European users, and given Strava has European offices with European employees, they’ve tripled-down on compliance with it (plus, their ToS notes GDPR as well).
I’m probably not as much into GDPR as Strava’s lawyers, but at least the guidelines to “Right to data portability” seem pretty clear that there must be no legal or technical hindrance to port user data? Not sure how one could argue against that.. Although i’m also not sure how 90% of internet services get around that..
“Article 20(1) of the GDPR provides that data subjects have the right to transmit the data to
another controller without hindrance from the controller to which the personal data have been provided.
Such hindrance can be characterised as any legal, technical or financial obstacles placed by data controller in order to refrain or slow down access, transmission or reuse by the data subject or by another data controller. For example, such hindrance could be: fees asked for delivering data, lack of interoperability or access to a data format or API or the provided
format, excessive delay or complexity to retrieve the full dataset, deliberate obfuscation of the dataset, or specific and undue or excessive sectorial standardization or accreditation
demands.”
I read the comments and everything is: I cancelled my “Summit membership”.
But I see the problem here is not about Summit, is about the data you are feeding to Strava.
And cancelling Summit doesn’t takes your data from Strava.
Reading the comments here is like reading almost any comment thread in Strava support – basically people cancelling their premium subscriptions due to Strava’s lack of ability to fix/initiate/respond to user feedback. There was a good article in Outside recently on Strava as a business, I think they have a hard road ahead. I love Strava and think it’s done wonders from the social aspect, I really appreciate the ability to support and be supported by teammates, friends and other like minded folks. That said, they really seem to have an inability to innovate, and literally just don’t respond to paying users feedback in their own support forums. I think the best we can hope for is for them to limp along as they are. Because of all of this, they really need to invite and encourage 3rd party developers, pretty sad to see what’s happened with Relive. Curious how things play out.
I’m torn. There’s this crass lack of judgement displayed by Strava when they are already losing massive amounts of goodwill due to razor-sharp focus away from their existing customers. But on the other side, there is relive, a fancy new way to bore your friends with vacation slides even harder than previously possible, and with less effort. I know I should get angry at Strava no matter what I think about relive, but I fail to get beyond mildly upset. (and that mostly because relive reminds me of the scripted videos Strava itself is guilty of, god knows how much of my “summit” they have wasted on those childish end of year personalized videos.)
My favorite is all the commute to work relive videos have been spammed to my inbox. I shuld have unlinked relive long ago
Ray hit the nail on the head – every bit of information ìs from us, not Strava.
Not difficult for me to decide paying up TraingPeaks and stop paying Strava for lack of innovation, quality matrices and now high handed methods to partners. Time to fold down Strava completely.
Thanks Strava for reminding me to cancel my Summit subscription. You don’t do that to small companies, just NOT Fair!
It’s time to say Goodbye to Strava!
I wonder how long it will be before Strava take a leaf from Garmin’s book and start charging $5000 for access to our data via its API.
Fwiw – Garmin ditched the fee this past April.
Also Fwiw – Inversely, Strava added a fee for device manufacturers last year.
Ah, I’ve just seen your comment. There’s no mention of them dropping the fee on their Developer Blog and the form you have to fill out to access the API isn’t particularly geared towards hobbyists/grass-roots developers. I particularly liked this question, the very last question:
> If your intended program is not revenue-bearing, please explain how the proposed relationship would offer strategic value to Garmin.
I wonder how far a response along the lines of “There is no strategy value for Garmin. I’m doing this for me and a few friends. Maybe some other Garmin users might find it useful too.” would play out. After all, that’s exactly how most of the popular utilities built around Strava started out.
Yeah, it’s not quite as open as Strava in that sense, but the fee is indeed gone (to be fair, it was mostly already gone years ago, it was just used as a barrier).
The metric Garmin was using when I talked to them about it back in April was basically “can you as a developer roughly sketch out a plan that 100 users would use your app within year”. The point being they didn’t really want to spend the dev resources supporting a pure hobbyist that’s only making an app for themselves. But they also weren’t requiring you be Spotify or Uber either.
All that said – I totally agree with you. Most of Strava’s best apps started as simple hobby things, and I think Garmin’s policy is short-sighted in the grand scheme of things. Though, I also have to note that it’s a long shift from where they used to be 3-4 years ago. Change/progress is sometimes slow in Kansas.
Well I was debating cancelling Summit, this plus the news that Wahoo are gonna link with Relive has been the catalyst for doing just that, goodby Strava Summit.
I just erased all the data uploaded to Strava, so they can generate their own data, plus I posted the following:
Dear Strava,
Due to recent changes on Strava application “we” decided to revoke all 3rd party upload on your platform. Strava continues to be an important platform to all of us but from now own all the activities are to be manually uploaded because we too value our data. Good luck sharing “your” data to other 3rd party applications as per you API terms!
Sincerely yours,
Ricardo
I’m not a lawyer but the data no longer belongs to you once you upload it to Strava. Ownership of said data is transferred to Strava. An example of this: you take a picture and upload it to Facebook. You transfer the ownership rights to Facebook as you uploaded to public domain giving up any and all rights to the picture. Facebook can now do whatever it likes with this image. The photography industry has had this major issue for years. Once you accept the agreement to open a Strava account and data you upload belongs to them. Strava has made a business selling this data to municipalities (City and States) for road construction and bike lane data and more. This is how Strava stays in business with all the free user accounts. See: link to wired.com. All this being said I have had a Strava account for many years and I have used Relive in the past. My guess as others have said is Strava has something in the works like Relive but that is not likely. The only issue with this is when was the last time Strava released anything new other then Summit?
Strata May “own” the data but if users do not upload, who is in control? If no users, no data, no Strava….
Member Content and Conduct
Content
You own the information, data, text, software, sound, photographs, graphics, video, messages, posts, tags, or other materials you make available in connection with the Services (“Content”), whether publicly posted, privately transmitted, or submitted through a third party API (e.g. a photograph submitted via Instagram).
Should have stopped at “I’m not a lawyer” as this is just not correct. Strava don’t own anything that’s uploaded regardless of what their terms say. Their terms are illegal in most countries and are superseded by the actual law which states they have no claim on the data other than the ways in which we allow them to use it. They can’t let someone else see or use the data without our explicit consent. We can withdraw that consent at any time and they have to cease any and all processing. We can require removal of any and all data at any time and they have to remove it from live systems as well as any and all backup and DR systems (to prevent “accidental” recovery of that data).
Sorry, should have said that people in the “land of the free” don’t have these protections as far as I know, which may be what leads to this sort of confusion by US companies.
Most States are working towards creating something very close to GDPR to provide data privacy protection. The California Consumer Privacy Act, for example, was passed into Sate Law in June 2018 and becomes effective from 01/01/2020
Strava (cycling) maybe at one point was useable for me and I guess if all you do is go for KOM on actual climbs or maybe maybe mountain biking it has value. But for me I never ride in a group and groups control all the times so what is the point. I cannot fairly compare my effort against a group. So just comparing myself against myself is best anyway and I can do that with almost any program including excel
so bugger off Strava I’m closing my account
data downloaded and account ghosted ……….poof
So why doesn’t Strava just outright BUY Relive? Or better yet, Garmin? Strava probably wouldn’t have the cojones to go up against Garmin if *it* owned that software, right?
Just permanently removed my Strava account, though my Summit subscription for this year was only half way. No anti social network support from my side
I had enough of Strava and their lack of support for paying members a little over a year ago. I had been a paying member for over 4 years, but they wouldn’t help me with even the most basic request, changing my password. I can’t remember my password there, and they’re supposed to send you a link to change it by email. But that never arrives, I have to login through Facebook. Dumping them has been no great loss. RidewithGPS has better routing features and support. I only use the free version for the social media aspect now. Screw them!
It was really thoughtful. first of all, I’m finished with using Strava. second I remember the same thing between Medium and Hackernoon and other bloggers which Medium claimed the blog posts are his, not the creator’s !!!
Strava account delete, byebye. Garmin Connect has all I need.
Love your reviews and takes on technology. Good points about Strava.
Good article Ray and agree with a lot of the sentiments expressed. For me, I’m a paying Summit member and probably staying as one. I don’t really use the features that Summit offer but I make enough use of the platform to justify the fee. Ultimately Strava appear to be in trouble though, innovate or die, history has long shown us that defending your turf through litigation only ends badly.
I’ll add to the chorus of Strava droppers here. I dropped my Summit membership about a month ago (well, stopped the renewal from happening). I gave my money to RideWithGPS instead.
Strava has jumped the shark. Other platforms do analytics better and even its ‘social’ aspect is a trainwreck with out of order listing of friends’ activities and the spam that now clogs the feed.
That’s a cancellation for me. Well done Strava.
Someone on sand hill road doesn’t understand sunk cost fallacy. Strava has proven to be repeatedly inept at navigating the public realm both with their product and their marketing approach. Take a look at the their job request list, or the fact that they had to open to the public their search for a CTO. From an organizational management perspective… they _suck_. Maybe if they were focused on the user they wouldn’t be screwing the pooch so badly.
Working on an F round and still not profitable.
Strava . . . the soon to be MySpace of sports apps. Strava’s only real value is as a data aggregator and connector, a role easily circumvented. Like Relive is doing right now. It’s lack of features except basic ones and proven lack of development capacity means there is little stickiness, unless one is addicted to the dopamine hit of a thumbs up. I find their emails to me prompting me to do so childish (“[friend x] just finished a ride!”) and irritating. Segments are interesting for competitive types like me but that is easily replicated elsewhere, many folks I know aren’t on Strava anyway, and many top times are done in team time-trialing group rides and now by e-bikes. So I care a lot less about them than I used to. Interestingly, yesterday (without knowing all this) I set all rides to private as a possible first step towards disengaging with Strava. This makes me want to disconnect more. Time for me to go direct connect to the apps I really like and use, and avoid the Strava data pass through, to limit the risk of Strava porking my cycling data ecosystem with another bullying move against a perceived competitor.
I dunno if it’s related. But since a couple of days, Tapiriik can’t connect with Strava either.
Same. Though I got an email from Strava saying they see Tapirik trying to connect but with some sort of error and have ended or blocked these attempts. Also that theyre investigating what went wrong.
Great article, Ray.
I’ve never even heard of Relive before this all kicked off. Now I’ve given it a go (sync’d to my Garmin connect account, which is where I’d have connected it anyway), I love it! So thanks for the free publicity, Strava!
On the other hand, you’re absolutely right about who’s data it is and with that in mind, I’ve cancelled my Summit membership. I wasn’t really using it anyway.
Maybe Strava has the same legal team that is over at Peloton (oh crap, I used that word, hopefully I will not get a letter now).
i use wahoo to generate my rides (or canoe trips), share it to strava and share it using a fit file to garmin connect, and i got it back in relive. takes a minute more and semi automatic now, but it works
Another cancelled Summit membership here, after 7 years as a paid member…
You’ll have paid Strava north of $400 over that time. Feel like you got value for money? ?
The other problem I have with Strava’s insistence on not wanting to share “their data” is that they got the data (in most cases) from someone else. Generally Garmin, Polar, Suunto, or Wahoo.
I could be off by my interpretation, but how few people actually use the Strava app to record an event? I’d guarantee that it is less than 5% and realistically it is probably < 1%.
I know that if I go down my Strava feed, I don't know one person who records their data directly in Strava. All of it is imported from other devices (like Garmin, Polar, Suunto, Wahoo) or services (like Zwift, TrainerRoad, Training Peaks, etc). Every single one of my Strava activities (~350 per year) are recorded on a Garmin device which is then sent to Strava or is recorded in TrainerRoad and sent to Strava.
So it seems hypocritical for Strava to not want to share "its' data" with third parties, when they get virtually all of "their data" from third parties to begin with.
I do think you’re off the mark there. I know lots of people who record using the strava app on their phone – mainly for running rather than riding.
I’d also expect there’s been a huge jump in strava app use since the gps enabled Apple Watch release as well.
This has been coming for a while now, Strava has an over inflated view of itself, and has the impression it’s far more important to us than it really is.
I closed my account last year after it told me I had to change my name as there was another user with the same name… How does that work then? No discussion change my name or…
I find Garmin Connect does everything I need of it.
Coming from a contracts background, you may find that hidden in there T&C’s is a clause that states, to the effect that your data becomes there’s once you’ve uploaded it (a la facebook etc)
I stopped paying for premium long ago and now might just abandon with this happening. What irked me a while ago was minor in the mobile apps was the reason with no fix at that time after bringing it up. The other minor thing is not able to un-kudos since I do it quickly and on accident. I like Relive and to see this happen will make me think twice about Strava now, just might focus on Garmin.
I remember reading in Outside magazine (link to outsideonline.com) that strava has been losing money for a while. They don’t make enough on subscriptions to cover costs.
They don’t want to put in ads, so that limits their bottom line.
This move makes them seem more desperate
They have a bunch of adds… Either as sponsored challenges or feed posts from companies
This is why I read this blog. Excellent piece of journalism Ray.
Forgot to mention, Strava subscription cancelled.
Strava has long given up to be an athlete-oriented tool. They are shooting to be a niche facebook. Social media! Yay!
There are so, soooo many easy athlete-oriented enhancements they could make and they are not happening. I honestly am mad at myself for still being a subscriber (more than 7 years now).
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and findings, outside of the our/their data argument it’s a pretty dumb move in any case since you can connect Relive directly to Garmin, or Polar, etc…
I thought that the combining was going to be the GPS data from Strava and pics/videos you add later on directly on the Relive app ?
I’m still intrigued by the “new social features” that Relive have added last week, what are they ?
Wauw, wat een reacties! Zo eens met de vele mensen hier. Ik betaalde voor beide diensten. Ik heb m’n Garmin gekoppeld aan Strava EN Relive aan Garmin. Zo verandert er niets, behalve dat ik voor Strava niet meer betaal. Dit besluit gaat Strava best veel geld kosten.
Gr. Gerard
Just reading the comment section on a DCR post when you see someone writing with very drunk English. Then you realize that it is not English. And to your surprise, you can still understand everything. 😀
Don’t need to look any further, here’s the link you want: link to strava.com
Summit / Premium is a waste of money, the Elevate Chrome addon is free and provides so much more detail if data is what you want… hopefully they don’t kill that too 😀
None of this will surprise anyone who has been following Strava since the beginning. I used to be a Premium member and a huge fan and advocate for the company. But I cancelled my paid subscription after their continued progression from a fitness app to a social networking app. I now only use Strava as a sync engine to get rides from my Lezyne GPS through to Trailforks.
Respect Ray,
Great to see people still tell it how it is.
So, you can’t replicate “their” data and you can’t combine it with other data, then… What can the api be used for?
I am done with Strava, closed my account today. With Garmin connect, and training peaks, it was mostly redundant anyway. I don’t really care who gives me kudos 😉
Can’t you just download .gpx then upload it?
IWhen i received an e-mail from Relive about it, i was just thinking about it was bullying from Strava….now i’m got sure it was…moving to another app in 3…2…ops…can just use Relive app to track me… 😉
I simply connected Garmin Connect to Relive problem solved!
As others have said Stava are walking a fine line given they are really the 3rd party relying on Garmin, Suunto, etc for feeds of OUR data. If it wasn’t for segments and the connection to others data/posts I would ditch Strava. I share others frustration at the refusal of Strava to develop and listen to it’s users.
Crikey to post this I had to provide DC Rainmaker with some of my data (name & email)! ?
You can put anything you want in those fields…SPAM bots certainly do. 😉
Savage
Would love a piece like this in to Starva turning off the Live Segments. That one was also removed by them, under some sort of guise of being for our own benefit. To protect ourselves from ourselves. Like above, it is our data – Strava need to remember they are just the vehicle for us to use it.
I have just cancelled my “Summit” subscription (would have renewed Oct 2019) – I have not used ‘Relive’ but IMHO it sure seems to me that it is my data
Glad I’ve never paid for Strava. This confirms that they are only interested in the social aspect and have no plans to improve/fix the product.
I left strava premium last December because of the recurring ads despite me paying for the service. With this action Fron Strava I will delete my account. I do t want to be associated with then any longer.
Just unsubbed from Strava Summit. As a software developer this was pretty appalling.
Easy decision. Just cancelled my summit membership. I honestly have very little use for Strava. Garmin and Training Peaks do everything I need for training.
I would encourage as many people as possible to post their annoyance with Strava behaving like corporate bullies…..maybe they will then realise this is NOT the way forward …doh !
Thanks for the link to Relive’s twitter feed. It was great to be able to pop over there and show some support!
Love Strava, but they should think more about user experience and ecosystem.
Just cancelled my summit account – Wake up Strava: it is NOT your data!!!
Another Summit membership cancelled. Totally agree that they aren’t listening to their users. Basic features have been requested for years with much support on their forums and seemingly no interest.
Hi bud,
Thanks for the great article explaining the darker side of it all. It was a great read.
Please can you provide the link for the relive page to show people how to manually upload their data to create the same nifty vids?
Strava linking it directly was nifty, but it helps relive still offer the service that may not realise is something that they can actually do themselves directly on the relive page.
Cheers
Goodbye Summit. Didn’t use Relive, but that’s not okay.
I thought I was the only one not using Strava but by reading all subscription cancelling messages it seems I will not be alone Strava-less in the future ?
Seems symptomatic of Strava’s approach to third party developers. They removed a lot of stuff from the API with very little warning, breaking a lot of apps in the process, presumably for GDPR although the data is still available on the website.
I wrote an improved segment explorer which has become fairly popular and started hitting their quota limits. Unlike most APIs, you can’t just start paying to get extra requests, you have to ask for an increased quota. I was denied an increase because I was replicating Strava features and was caching data for longer than 7 days, which whilst true is also true of pretty much every other app out there. I think they just use the API T&Cs as a way to bully developers they don’t like the look of
+1 on all above. IT’S MY DATA
I didnt use strava much anyway but just deleted my account. I mainly use garmin connect or trainerroad calendar for my data tracking but Strava needs to wake up.
Another ‘former’ Strava user.
Deleted 1800 activities spanning nearly 8 years.
Also added an entry to Strava’s wiki entry, linking back to this post. Hope it boost Ray’s visitor numbers too
I also have cancelled summit and deleted my Strava. That is just not right.
I wish I’d done it two weeks ago though, as the renewal just went through 2 weeks ago, ha! Not sure if they issue a refund, but at this point I am fed up with Strava and just want it canceled and gone for good.
Hi all,
The only function I use on Strava that I don’t know exists for free elsewhere is the “Fitness and Freshness” part. Are there any other platforms that can give me an idea of this for low or no cost?
Thanks
Elevate plugin, for several browsers.
Once upon a time Strava was this beacon of shining light in a fog of darkness full of average apps.
Over the years though, they’ve turned into that fog of darkness themselves.
There are basic basic feature requests on their forum that go back 7 years, so so many of them that should have been implemented long ago. Show temperature in Celsius? Been waiting 8 years. Monthly rather than weekly leaderboards? 7 years. The list is endless. I do wonder what the quoted 125 staff they have do.
Once upon a time, as a Strava user I was effectively a marketer for them – brought a lot of my friends over to the service. Now I’m hoping something better will come along without causing a fracture in the community. Nothing worse than having to be on 3 apps at once because various people use different services.
I have obtained quite a bit of satisfaction over the years that the one-man VeloViewer site makes all sorts of useful features that make the well funded Strava look like child’s play. I cancelled my premium membership long ago as they seemingly ignore user feedback.
Ray…great analysis, insight and opinion, as always. I have a Strava account, but I’m a pretty light user – it’s sort of a backup if my Garmin borks during indoor training. I have Sufferfest and Zwift sync to Strava, but use the data in Garmin Connect almost exclusively. I am not a molecule or an atom in the Strava ecosystem – maybe a single electron. So Strava does not need to listen to me – I don’t make them any $. But, still – this action sucks, so, in my mind, Strava sucks. Apparently, lots of folks that Strava should be paying attention to agree. Exceedingly, amazingly stupid move.
I was paying for summit to support Strava because I like and use Strava a lot.
But after this I cancelled my summit subscription and connect Relive to my Garmin account.
+1 cancelled Strava summit. Lousy form from strava
Pathetic that we have to live in a world where the lawyers call the shots! This is not in the interests of the users at all. As this excellent article highlights, the data is ours!
I noticed the new Relive features a week or so back and thought at the time they were encroaching into Strava territory. Personally, I ignored these features as I just want to be able to “relive” some of my favourite rides.
So, Strava are relying on the fact that users like me are trapped because I love some of the features offered by the platform.
How about then, instead of putting up barriers to users like me and diminishing my enjoyment of the data I choose to share with you (currently via Wahoo ELEMNT Bolt), you invest some my Summit membership money in the features I want! For example, instead of fighting with Relive, buy them and provide something your users want rather than sitting on your arses on a platform that hasn’t added new features for a long time and then getting annoyed when someone else starts to develop similar functionality.
So disappointed! I will be looking for alternatives.
Just wanted to add, as this is really annoying me, that this should not be about legal this / GDPR that. This should be about doing the right thing for the customer. Strava, like so many companies in today’s world, has shown that they don’t care about the customer.
So, Strava’s legal documents may enable them to do what they’ve done. I don’t care. They’ve declared themselves morally bankrupt by doing so.
As someone who’s spent a lot of time writing and negotiating contracts in my career, I know how things end once you start discussing those contracts with a partner, supplier, competitor, customer etc.. In acrimonious divorce.
Endomando for years and thought I would give strava a try. I also have been using relive for years. For the reasons stated I will be going back to Endomando.
I have to say, if it wasn’t for a couple of 3rd party apps I use which pull data from the API and not from any other sources I would delete my strava account completely. They seem to have lost all interest in their end users. Great article Ray
this is a classic sign of what happens when a company gets too big, they start being controlled by opportunistic assholes and lawyers who are only too happy to step on smaller organisations in the pursuit of profit. . .
. . . this is usually the point I start to resent giving them a penny and cancel any existing subscription, just like I have today…goodbye Strava summit
Another cancelled Summit membership here. It was next on my to go list after I dropped Facebook in January.
It’s important to show these large platforms with seemingly unlimited financial resources that their actions matter and that their paying users will hold them to account.
Never paid anything to Strava, just tried premium and summit a bit. I just removed Strava from my Garmin connect and set all activities as private. Well done Strava
I got rid of Strava sometime last year when suddenly they no longer allowed me to see my HR data without a special “authorization” that had never been required before.
Like you say, it is MY data.
I did some back and forth inquiring with zero success in getting my HR data so I decided that was the end of Strava for me.
Can’t say I have missed anything.
Every year when it’s time to renew my Strava Premium, errrr – I mean “Summit” – I seriously have to wonder what the hell I’m paying them for. Example – I wanted to get a Stryd, but they don’t even integrate that data, so I haven’t bothered. Strava better lift their game soon, or they’ll end up in the dustbin within a few years!
Strava sent a price offer to buy Relive.
Relive refused as it was too low and or they want to be on their own.
Strava pulled the plug to “discipline” them.
As the author says, there are other companies “violating” Strava’s api policy and no plug or hair pulling there.
Is that hard to understand?
There was no price offer or such talk. 100% confident on that after discussing with both parties.
Ended premium today. Extremely disappointed with his strava handle user input and the whole ecosystems.
Just bought a year subscrition 2nd of July. As it is within 14 days, I got the order cancelled today and Apple refunded me. Glad they could help me send a signal Strava that they are making themselves obsolete AND give me my money back 😀
Great in-depth writing here Ray, as always.
It’s my data as you say. In my case uploaded from the Wahoo app, not to Strava directly. If they don’t play fair my Premium membership which is called something different now will be terminated by me. I want to see the data in Relive. I’ve been using Strava since is a beta but if they get too big for their boots, I can upload elsewhere. The Wahoo app just got an upgrade and offers me most of what I need now. I can share to social media instead of Strava.
When the started to change the subscription model i already pulled the plug and did not resubscribe to the new packaging as it provided no additional value and puzzelt me more then anything.
I post on it via free accounts and Garmin connect but don’t really care. The same for Relive, at the Beginning it was a cool feature but got boring as the most rides are repeating. Anyway both Solutions are not live threatening and Strava might better get his act together. A shitstorm is already on its way and might do more harm. All in all i liked Strava much more years ago and hope they get disrupted soon so we might have something more useful. I’m a big fan of Xert! Happy riding to you all!
thanks for this one. just in time, i cancelled my annual subscription. that is just the icing of the cake..not that i care too much about relive – that is just going a bit too far…bully-ish for sure. while ads keep popping up as featured content, functionality disappears, for me personally, to search for activities of other fellow Strava users..enough is enough. thx man.
I’m only using Strava as a backup for Garmin Connect. The only feature I sometimes use is the “Flyby”, that I miss from GC. Other than that I don’t spend any time on their web UI as it is just a big mess for me (subjective opinion). Can anyone suggest another good backup platform, and an alternative to the Flyby?
You can put your .fit files in Google Drive/Drop box/iCloud. Any cloud service basically.
Thanks, I’m already doing that, it has a few flaws however: I have plenty of manually added stationary bike rides, and that will not have other data, like number of steps on a day, sleep data, etc. (I know that those do not go to Strava either). So I’m just asking if there is a better place to backup. (I used tapiriik and fitnessyncer for a while as well.) But thanks for the suggestion anyway :- )
Cancelled my $3 a month with them, sure they dont care but I did write my reason in, “your issues with relive”
It would seem the field is ripe for a new player to come in and clean house.
Cancelled my summit subscription, just using the free stuff now. Strava is beginning to look like Apple with this attitude!
The moment I got the emails, I contacted both companies asking for clarification.
Relive’s response was more credible.
Plus, you cannot simply accuse someone of “not safeguarding user data” without giving any proof.
This is tantamount to slander, at the minimum. Relive could sue.
Anyway, it is Relive that comes out a winner here. I am sure their numbers will grow.
I am deleting my Strava account; never really subscribed to summit.
Strava sucks in many ways. That’s way I decided to cancel my paid subscription. They just don’t get it.
Great analysis of a total BS situation, used relive for fun occasionally, now I want to use it more via another service, just to raise a finger to strava
Wow. Strava becoming exclusive to everything but itself. Boo.
Good article, thanks DC Rainmaker! I +1 the comments above. I cancelled Strava Premium, although it’s paid to May 2020. I’ve enjoyed Relive for the big or unusual rides, so I guess I’ll use Garmin Connect from here on. Let’s hope that Garmin doesn’t start acting like jerks now.
Don’t you think the real problem is that the new social feed on Relive defaults to sharing your map publicly and that’s what got Strava into deep trouble several years ago? And if Relive gets in trouble with their maps while using Strava’s API, then it’s still Strava’s problem too? It’s not about me owning my data, it’s about privacy defaults in a public setting and not wanting to make the same mistake twice.
Nope, not the issue.
As for privacy zones, I don’t believe those are honored when you pull a file via the API to a 3rd party app. Because I don’t believe 3rd party apps have access to privacy zones details. Someone with specific knowledge of that would have to comment. But I can say that’s not the issue here with Relive specifically.
It appears that there are different levels of API access Strava can grant, one of which provides privacy zone information and the other which doesn’t. I don’t know the technical details of how that works, but I can say that for me, Relive did respect my Strava privacy zones.
A really well written article! I, for one, will vote with my feet and downgrade my summit subscription at the next possible plopporuntiy.
It’s fine, Strava. I’m start using Strava just because they allow me to link with Relive and create that cool movie for my runs. Now all I did just stop using Strava anymore, simple as that. ?
Thank you for this post. I thought the email from Strava sounded like an email from a teenager moments after a break up, and I was a bit embarrassed for them. I don’t appreciate their view on my data, and I look forward to more competitors in this market to give us additional options. For now, the less social TrainingPeaks is one of my favorite training apps.
Never liked Strava. It even bothers me every time I buy new hardware there are menu’s about strava live segments all over the place. Ugh.
Love to see all this crap being ditched all together.
Outstanding journalism Ray.
Since Strava decided to become more of a social platform (I understand they recruited some executives from Instagram) it’s been gong downhill.
I never used Relive but this type of hostility towards partners and ultimately users is really putting me off.
Thanks for such a thorough article.
Another cancelled Summit member here.
I was getting frustrated with the lack of innovation, but when the only observable thing they are using my money for is stifling innovation within the space – goodbye Strava!
On the positive side this article made me join Relive (linked to Garmin), I had heard of Relive but didn’t realise it was so polished until I saw the video in this article.
Just a guess but this is probably been the biggest PR boost that Relive has had? I’d assume this has actually increased their user base.
I just want them to fix the glaring problem with Fitness & Freshness…can they do that instead of sending legal threats to other apps?
link to support.strava.com
just canceled my summit membership as well
Great article DC. I wished that I have read your article before dropping off Relive.
Never commented on a DC Rainmaker article before but love reading such insightful analysis. So thanks, and yes, I’m another user to have dropped my Summit membership (even if I’ve never used Relive).
Ok, lets distill this to 5 key points:
1) Strava has not developed any new or improved features in the last 3 years that I can tell. Its development pace is glacial.
2) Strava features mainly appeal to beginner/intermediates/social/narcissists. Once anyone gets vaguely serious on fitness, they find that Strava has a massive hole in its feature set.
4) The REAL innovators in this space are the 3rd parties. They are quick moving and fill the feature set hole that Strava has created. The are NOT the problem, rather a symptom of Strava’s lack of innovation.
5) Strava needs to put itself in paying customers shoes and ask only 1 question: “What value do I (Strava) provide”?
For me, the answer the the last question is: Nothing that I am prepared to continue paying for”. Today, after 5 years, I am cancelling payment and will go with free account until something changes.
The fact that it forces you to use an app rather just allowing you to just upload it on the computer (which you can do) AND generate the map as well, makes this is non-issue. Not everything needs to be f***ing app only. Developers..you are not getting ANYTHING off my phone. Accept it and move on. Good riddance Relive.
relive basically stole their entire concept from me, so I have a fairly unique view of their ethics. It’s making me chuckle to see them portray themselves as whiter than white here.
proof:
link to twitter.com
Suunto were doing it long before that.
link to suunto.com
Indeed. And I’d argue that what Relive did/does is quite different than what’s shown in the pic/tweet.
Wait a second…. So you’re telling me you invented the totally original concept of 3D flyovers of fitness activities recorded by GPS on a 3D globe comprised of texture mapped images and satellite elevation data a whole SIXTEEN YEARS after Keyhole created the technology for the product that later became Google Earth? And TWELVE YEARS after Garmin released the Forerunner 301 that made this possible? And you didn’t patent this idea?
Please friend, tell me more. Have you considered lawyering up?
Did either of those use the Strava API, which was, like, the entire point of the article?… I didn’t consider lawyering up because basing an entire business on third party API access is clinically retarded. It was, therefore, a fun little project – a bit like relive. I grinned, shrugged, and got on with my life… 😉
It didn’t occur to me that you were claiming that Relive’s whole idea was using the Strava API, and that’s what they “stole” from you, no, what with that clearly failing the non-obvious test. You do know that they use multiple other APIs as well, don’t you?
I suspect that it’s somewhat often that things don’t occur to you. The whole logical leap between comparing two services which provide 3D vis of bicycle rides uploaded to Strava, i mean, it’s a tough concept, granted… Anyway, enough of my time wasted with your intellectually challenged provocation. Enjoy your life! xoxo
Lol. You can troll, I’ll give you that. Enough said.
Im one of the (it seems) few who dont do Strava.
If there is enough public push back onto Wahoo and Garmin to drop the connectivity, Strava would be DEAD… but I suspect that this will be a storm in a tea cup and forgotten about in a week or two…
-1 Summit subscription.
Never used Relive, but I don’t support bullies.
Will definitely give them a try over the next days…
Just cancelled my Summit account !
I received two emails from Strava in the last week about third party apps that I use that Strava is now disabling. Seems like I need to switch to a different service to enjoy the functionality I’ve previously used. Maybe Wahoo and Garmin will allow me to like my watch and bike computers to their sites and skip Strava altogether.
It’s interesting to note that there’s not the slightest mention of this on the Strava-hosted “community support” pages (where all submissions are invisible until manually permissioned to appear by Strava staff), and that “comments are closed” on their help-page post on the Relive cutoff. Clearly not interested in hearing their user’s thoughts on this. ?
link to support.strava.com
link to support.strava.com
It took me a while to wrap my head around it, but re-reading today I finally think I got it:
What they mean with “combine” is mix Strava activities with activities sourced elsewhere (e.g. direct upload) into a shared representation. A flyby viewer with both Strava activities and activities from other platforms would fit that bill, a social feed with Strava and non-Strava would fit that bill, matching activities of members of your club who are not on Strava with the segment times of those who are to create private leaderboards that reach beyond Strava would fit that bill like a first to an eyesocket.
Relive hasn’t done the third, may or may not have done the second (I never tried “relive club”) but the first two are exactly what relive would naturally want to do when generating a video for a group ride where the participants upload to different platforms (look at the example video in relive.cc/about if it’s not anchors to you how relive would combine multiple activities).
Combining Strava data with e.g. historical weather records would be fine, but any way of bringing together data retrieved over the Strava API with activities of non-members is a nogo, as it would undermine the network effect that drives Strava’s business.
Correct. 🙂
Except for all the typos and editing errors, obviously.
If Strava wasn’t so blindly focused on replicating in other disciplines (because growth) the success they had in cycling, they might try to cultivate labor-of-love API clients by offering hosting in exchange for exclusivity or perhaps even some minor sharecropping arrangements in exchange for third-party summit-only features, for allowing freelancers to extract minor part time value without going all-in. Note that I’m not suggesting that this could have happened with relive, the high number of faces on their “about” page + open positions shows that they are already spending magnitudes more than that kind of arrangement could ever be expected to yield. With that level of investment, remaining a gimmicky add-on to Strava cannot possibly be their intended end-game.
I was thinking about exactly that on the way home.
They’ve got such an incredibly loyal group of cyclists and runners (myself included), that it’s mind-boggling they keep focusing on areas that nobody is asking for (e.g., yoga crowd, per the recent Outside Magazine article). Nothing wrong with yoga tracking and such at all, but that’s functionally not much different than SRAM or Shimano saying they’re going after yoga too, because it’s fitness.
I think if they cut all the ‘fluff’ (not in terms of features, but rather focus), they’d actually have the resources to do core running/cycling things.
I actually don’t mind the social elements of Strava. It’s functionally why I’m on Strava. I don’t use it for anything else other than sharing where I’ve been/etc. That’s it. I use other ‘legit’ training analysis apps like TrainingPeaks, etc… for doing actual performance analysis.
Could Strava pivot that way? Sure. But I’d honestly rather than focus on social features within cycling/running first. Ya know, things that people actually want: Like group ride organization/tracking, or sharing of routes within a group that auto-push to head units based on scheduled ride date, etc…
The world doesn’t need another TrainingPeaks/Xert/FinalSurge/Today’sPlan/etc… Really, we don’t. We just need a better Strava.
Hah, well, if anything this made me realize exactly that. I was paying for both Training Peaks and Strava. But with TP I was paying for a tool to help me improve my performance. Strava I was paying for…what exactly?
My use for Strava is connecting with my friends and clubs. Garmin has me covered on live tracking. I don’t want to drop the platform but I certainly don’t need to pay for it.
It seems to me that Strava is simply deciding not to use their platform to enable a competitor’s business. I don’t think Strava has a moral obligation to use their platform to enable competitors, even if their platform is powered by your data. After all, you could simply choose to upload your data to Relive directly, or link Relive to another platform with your data on it.
As far as their legal obligation under GPDR, I am no lawyer, but I looked up Article 20 and the associated Recital 68 covering the “Right to data portability” and while article 20 creates the right to have “data transmitted directly from one controller to another, where technically feasible.”, the associated Recital 68 clarifies that this does not “create an obligation for the controllers to adopt or maintain processing systems which are technically compatible.” In other words, Strava is not required to have or maintain an API for 3rd party use. Obviously Strava does have an API, so perhaps the GPDR requires that they allow Relive access to it whether they are a competitor or not. Not sure I agree with that, but certainly something that could be litigated here.
I’ve created a Change.org petition to Strava as I, and clearly many others, feel that they have not acted in the best interests of the community. You can view and sign it here: link to chng.it