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Sounds very much an anti-competitive approach and may well lead to lawsuits. If I owned a competitor to zwift and found that the two biggest sellers of hardware were only selling their hardware with Zwift I would be consulting my lawyers.
Yeah, I don’t think the EU competition authorities are goint to like that arrangement either. Will be interesting to se how this develops. Hopefully Wahoo Systm somehow survives – has been my prefered platform since the Sufferfest days.
Indeed. That really is the Microsoft / Internet Explorer thing all over again, except worse since IE was free for everyone… If that’s picked up by the CJEU, it won’t end well for Zwift.
A couple brief thoughts:
A) While Zwift sold a crapton of Zwift Hubs, it was very limited to basically just US/Europe. As such, from a dominance standpoint, they’re actually much smaller than Garmin/Tacx in terms of trainers sold. Wahoo and Tacx/Garmin are easily the #1/#2 companies out there in terms of total unit volume. These days, it’s tough to know who exactly is the overall unit-volume winner. My guess would be it’s switched from Wahoo to Tacx/Garmin, but who knows. Then you’ve got Elite, likely still easily selling more trainers than Zwift. I’d guess that Zwirt is now slotted in above Saris, given Saris’s current situation.
B) I’m not sure I see the equivelent to IE. In this case, the trainers are still open standard, the Wahoo KICKR CORE can still be bought via literally countless channels for the lower price (sans-Zwift). This is really only impacting WahooFitness.com availability.
C) Zwift is 100% allowed to bundle the Zwift Hub with Zwift. There’s zero question about that, as they should be. It’s their platform after all. I couldn’t even begin to count the number of hardware devices out there that come bundled with a subscription as a requirement for initial purchase. Like, almost everything these days except smart trainers for that matter. In fact, Zwift would easily argue they’re way better than all of those, since you can buy a Zwift Hub for $599 and never use Zwift. You just throw away that sub, and use the trainer over ANT+/BLE.
While I get, and agree to a degree, with the concern around how Wahoo and Zwift might align themselves down the road – one has to keep in mind that legally speaking, they’re perfectly within their rights to do so. Neither holds anywhere near a monopoly on the indoor training market, and in fact, in the grand scheme of life, Zwift continues to be a relatively tiny compared to Peloton’s sub base (a platform that is inching ever more slowly towards including Zwift-like components), or even Apple’s Fitness+ service (again, from a legal standpoint, it’s an indoor training platform likely dwarfing both of those).
And all of that further ignores Garmin/Tacx probably being bigger than Wahoo/Zwift combined from a hardware standpoint, and also ignores all the other players, and again ignores the fact that the trainer still works on open standards.
Ray,
Totally understand if you can’t comment on this but wondering if this current deal of Zwift Hub, year subscription and free shipping is “pull the trigger now territory” or if it’s worth waiting for cyber monday in your opinion.
Thanks!
I really hope it’s not end of Wahoo X (Sufferfest)–I’ve really loved their workouts for years now and was really enjoying the work they have done to enable workouts on RGT. They did send out some email recently about changing websites but did not realize they were disbanding the sports science division. Does this mean they are separating from Neal Henderson and team?
Yes, Neal was laid off and I expect that is true for all others in that division.
Yep. I like the vids, and 4DP plans/workouts. I haven’t been that interested in virtual world games like Zwift and RGT.
Unbelievably stupid decision from Wahoo to get rid of the sports science team. It was one of the core areas they were winning over Zwift. I really hope Zwift acquire TrainerRoad now. They’ve absolutely run the Sufferfest into the ground.
Wait… what? When? He was still on The Knowledge podcast last time! Crap!
The main announcement was slipped into a Geek Warning podcast from just over a week ago (covered in a reply of the forum topic). Hoping this link works:
link to wahoox.forum.wahoofitness.com
Why would you hope for further consolidation of the indoor training platforms? That’s the opposite of what benefits you as a customer.
If this is the end of Wahoo X and if TrainerRoad is bought by Zwift, where’s the incentive for Zwift to invest in advanced structured indoor training for the masses? They haven’t so far, so they would be even less inclined to spend a few hundred thousand dollars on it.
If Zwift buy TrainerRoad, I don’t think they have the organizational capacity to make good on that purchase. I suspect they won’t manage the acquisition well. If I were a TR subscriber, I would hope they don’t sell to Zwift.
That too, Weiwen.
I believe that time has passed (Zwift buying TR), I don’t foresee that happening in the near term. There was an economic window for that to occur, offers were made, and offers weren’t accepted. Things have moved on.
In some cases, consolidation is bad (e.g. major players combining). In some cases, consolidation is good (e.g. a smaller player that probably would have gone under, but is scooped up and benefits consumers by still being around).
Is a year of zwift even worth that much considering they turned off being able to pause your subscription and most people aren’t zwifting outside winter.
Sure, depends a bit on the user and their implementation. But if you just consider that $100 USD divided $15/month usual price, you get 6.6 months effective coverage. Could be a wash for plenty of users with that, but even in normal outside ride seasons, there can be benefits to having Zwift access. Crap weather, shifting time schedule, smoke from fires and many other reasons might make even a ride on Z per week worthwhile to have yearly access.
Hi, we can still “pause” our account billing at any time by using the “Cancel Membership” option: link to support.zwift.com
It preserves all of our account data and progress, and then we just renew our membership when ready to resume. (I’ve done this every year since 2019.) Cheers
I read that as your levelling progress in the game is saved. You might have done it every year since 2019 but the change to remove pausing came earlier this year.
Hi, no it saves 100% of our account data, it’s as if we never left.
It’s completely separate from the old (now non-existent) “Pause” option.
That screenshot/link info is directly from Zwift’s website.
I most recently used this option to resume my account on 9 July 2023.
Cheers
Loneleaf, but your account didn’t have a years worth of zwift paid upfront did it? That’s what I’m saying would be lost if you cancelled mid way though, not anything to do with in-game stuff.
Bingo! As @thrawed says, I’m not sure this full year pre-pay and associated discount will still allow “canceling” as people have done with month to month payments. If it works that way, that’s rather nice. But I could easily see Z just treating it as a full year with no option to cancel/pause.
Best would be to get a direct Q&A from Zwift, so maybe Ray could get that for us?
Ah ok, now I see where you’re coming from. Sorry I thought it was just about the ability to suspend our accounts for a while. Yeah mine was just a regular monthly subscription.
I don’t know if the bundled paid-up year would be pause-able. I can only speculate that it wouldn’t be, because all it does is suspend billing and game access, and there is no billing to suspend until that first pre-paid year has elapsed (I have to further speculate that regular monthly billing then begins, but maybe there will be an annual renewal option top).
I’m inclined to agree with @Chad McNeese that it might not matter much if we can suspend it or not, since $100 is only about 6-7 months at the regular rate anyhow. (Although I’ve had some years where I had as few as 4 months, so only $60, I still think the whole year for $100 is a reasonable bundle option.)
Yeah reaching out to Zwift Support for clarity sounds like a good idea. I’ve found they’re pretty responsive on billing topics.
Cheers
I wonder if this will work with bundled one year – I tend to think it won’t.
Your information on pausing is wrong. All a user has to do is cancel subscription. The phone app still works, you can still give ride-ons to folks you follow. When you sign into the app to ride all your data is there, they even give a 25k free ride monthly. When it is time to resubscribe you get a free 14 days before the paid monthly subscription starts.
As far as the report DC, I agree seems to be teetering on collusion and price fixing. Wahoo X eviscerated the soul of the Sufferfest. Hope they have the foresight to keep it alive.
It’s been a good few weeks for Zwift…
settled with Wahoo,
then Unity change their licence structure to nerf the competition, who all seem to use their UnReal engine,
the Zwift Autumn release program looks really good too
but how much of this is because there is realistic competition, which tbf is mainly myWhoosh, who are well placed to be the only ones who can just eat these new Unity costs.
Unreal and Unity are different game engines by different companies.
I only use RGT which is Unity-based, I don’t know about the other competitors.
Hey Ray, when I took a look at the latest Wahoo Core product page, it now includes the $100 Zwift annual membership as mentioned. The interesting thing I also see comes in the last part of the Zwift related section quoted below:
“Purchase includes a 1-year membership to Zwift. Membership requires Zwift account and auto-renews after 12 months at $149.99, unless cancelled.
Is this legit and a essentially new/different $30 discount on Zwift annual membership?
Or is that some mistake / typo and it should be $180 (12mo x $15/mo)?
Sounds like the end of The Sufferfest.
To me looks like the winner will be… Elite?
Without a doubt the price increase is part of the settlement.
On the one hand it sucks on the other hand the alternative is that zwift goes through a lengthy court battle taking money away from developing more stuff for zwift.
There is plenty of competition in the trainer market. And several companies on the software side. As long as Zwift works perfectly with all trainers, and Wahoo works perfectly with all software apps, I think the consumer will be OK, as long as we have an independent trade press. Thank you DCR!
Bye bye Zwift hub, welcome Wahoo Kickr
Thanks for your insights, interesting. Fair point about the trainers being available without Zwift via other channels, I missed that part.
Open standards are not a mitigation: other browsers ran on Windows too, that wasn’t the issue. The argument you mention about being able not to use Zwift: you still could use other browsers than IE. That wasn’t an argument retained by the the EU.
The issue was to bundle products by default. Here, the partnership with Zwift (assuming enough volume on the hardware side for Wahoo/Zwift, and that might be my incorrect assumption) could be seen as a way to further increase Zwift dominant position on the software side.
But then the question is: from a size standpoint, is Garmin/Tacx bigger than Wahoo and Zwift combined in the EU (outside the EU is irrelevant for the EU authorities)? What’s the market share for smart trainers sold of Wahoo and Zwift combined, on the hardware side?
So, 100% allowed to bundle yes, but allowed to force the bundle isn’t that clear cut. Remains to be seen if standalone version will indeed stay, for other channels.
“is Garmin/Tacx bigger than Wahoo and Zwift combined in the EU (outside the EU is irrelevant for the EU authorities)?
Very easily. EU is Tacx’s home turf, where they’ve always dominated Wahoo in terms of sales. Even more so once under the Garmin paradigm with greater channels (while concurrently Wahoo decreased available sales channels in recent years, to combat MAP). Heck, I’d even bet Elite beats Wahoo in Europe.
Wow, I would never have guessed, especially for Elite! Thanks for the info.
Its not all about Zwift, there is still plenty of alternative Platforms more or less expensive even with Meetups, more or less realistic or not… Rouvy, Fulgaz, IC-Trainer and recently MyWosh which is going after Zwift and is totally free!
Finally upgraded my old, well used, Cyclops Fluid 2 turbo to direct drive. Wife now has as Zwift Hub and myself a Wahoo Kickr Core. Not much between them.
From a fitness perspective, with no goals, Zwift is ok for getting on and riding. But for training with event goals, Zwift in my opinion doesn’t compare to the structure of, (and science behind,) Sufferfest/Wahoo X.
I haven’t used RGU as much, but did recently create a course for a local hill climb. This is so simple to do and if training for certain events could be a real advantage, when a course recon isn’t possible.
If I have an existing Zwift subscription, and I purchase the $599 Zwift Hub bundle – does that *extend* my current Zwift subscription out +1 year?
Seems like a decent deal, if I have to replace an old or broken smart trainer…to snag an extra year of Zwift for just $100 on top.
Answering my own question (since I ended up buying a Kickr with the 1-year deal of Zwift) – it absolutely does extend your existing Zwift subscription by 1 year.
Been using ‘X’ since it was sufferfest, I really hope they don’t drop it.
Ray,
Totally understand if you can’t comment on this but wondering if this current deal of Zwift Hub, year subscription and free shipping is “pull the trigger now territory” or if it’s worth waiting for cyber monday in your opinion.
Thanks!
Regarding the “savings” on yearly subscription on Zwift with Zwift Hub now, it is questionable… most people ride only during the winter months, lets say max. 4-6 months, so in the end you actually pay more for the time you spend indoor, but of course depends on the user. That is why I like the subscription options offered by Rouvy, they also have 6month option and make me feel a bit better with a small saving and having similar quality of an app as Zwift offers…