Yesterday Strava sent out an e-mail to users, outlining a change that’s occurring almost immediately, regarding 3rd party apps and the way apps are allowed to access and process data from Strava. All of these changes impact what is known as the Strava API (Application Programming Interface). That’s the piece that lets your Garmin watch push your workout to Strava, and then lets an app like VeloViewer or others access your data.
There are countless apps that use Strava’s API, literally tens of thousands according to Strava. Some of these are tiny, some of them are massive. Virtually every company in the space uses Strava’s API, including Garmin, Wahoo, TrainerRoad, VeloViewer, Xert, and plenty more. It’s become the defacto data hub for millions of athletes, some 100m+ according to Strava’s press release.
In any event, the e-mail Strava sent out, as you can see below, is pretty bland, and doesn’t really get into things:
Instead, you need to crack open the included link to start understanding the implications. All of which roughly boils down to two main items (but a bunch of smaller things), there’s three biggies:
#1: “Third-party apps are no longer able to display your Strava activity data on their surfaces to other users.”
#2: “We’re updating our terms to explicitly prohibit third parties from using any data obtained via Strava’s API in artificial intelligence models or other similar applications.”
#3: “You may not process or disclose Strava Data…for the purposes of, including but not limited to, analytics, analyses…”
They also included language that apps are somehow not allowed to replicate Strava’s “distinctive look and feel”, which…ok. And more hilariously, they added that any users posting to their community hub forums that are “requesting or attempting to have Strava revert business decisions will not be permitted” and summarily deleted.
Said differently: Do not discuss the community things you don’t like in the community.
But again, the big three that matter here are:
#1: Apps can’t show your data beyond yourself
#2: Apps can’t use any “AI” whatsoever in their processing of your data
#3: Apps can’t do any analytics or data processing of your data
To understand how ridiculous these are, let’s outline some real-world apps you’re probably familiar with.
Breaking Coaching and Comparison Apps:
The first item (not showing data beyond yourself) immediately breaks almost all coaching apps that have connections to Strava. This includes apps like Final Surge, Xert, and Intervals.icu. These are apps that pull in your Strava data (as you requested) to analyze on your platform. For visual reference, this:
Now you may be wondering why they don’t just go directly to Garmin, Wahoo, etc… That’d be more effective, right? And indeed it is, and most of these apps do. Except there are literally thousands of device manufacturers out there, and many of them only connect to Strava.
Take for example the AmazFit T-Rex watch I’m testing right now. That doesn’t connect to Final Surge. Or Xert. Or TrainerRoad. Or much else. It does connect to Strava though, so, my data uploads to Strava and I’m done – off it goes to all my authorized apps. The same is true for the Google Pixel Watch. Or Samsung’s Galaxy watches. Below is a good example of how I can get all those data types into Strava.
Strava benefits because they’ve become the defacto platform of choice for consumers. Companies benefit because they don’t need never-ending connections to platforms. And consumers benefit because everything ‘just works’. That’s the goal, right? Just working?
Well, not anymore.
With this change, apps that do any sort of coaching on their platform are not allowed to show the end users data to their coach. The new API terms and conditions explicitly prohibit this:
“you may not disclose such data to, or use it for, another user nor any other third party.”
In fact, the popular training and coaching platform Intervals.icu already posted this breaks all coaching features for them related to Strava data – requiring them to hide not only new user data going forward, but all historical data for coaches.
“Activities from Strava will soon only be visible to the athlete that performed the activity, not to their coaches or followers. This is a new addition to the Strava API terms and conditions.”
But it also breaks plenty of other apps that aren’t coaching apps – but merely showing Strava data. For example, apps like VeloViewer, which curates your lists of segments for deeper analytics and competition among groups, breaks. Same goes for all of their leaderboards for Zwift. Or their challenges. Or the listing of other people’s efforts (when you click on ‘View on Veloviewer’ from any of these below. All of it – going to be killed off if apps follow the letter of the law.
Like these details:
The challenge with these changes, is that practically speaking, unless you have a Garmin or other big-name device with a proper and well-documented public and easy to access API, all of these apps won’t set up connections to those device platforms directly. They can’t in some cases, and it won’t be feasible in most to service all of these app requests. Even seemingly big players like Wahoo, Hammerhead/SRAM, and Polar don’t have easily accessible APIs that scale well to the number of requests that are going to be required here.
No Analysis of Data Apps:
But wait, there’s more. Strava’s new API agreement also makes clear that you can’t do ‘year in review’ type summaries either. In fact, it actually says you can’t do any analytics or processing of the data:
“You may not process or disclose Strava Data, even publically viewable 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.
In fact, as one major app pointed out to me, the above paragraph basically says you can’t do anything with any data at all. While portions of the above entry existed in previous API versions, this paragraph has now been expanded to be more precise.
With the above line, you can’t do much of anything. You want to show a user how many miles they ran that week? Nope, not according to the letter of the law as that’s ‘processing’ for the purposes of ‘analytics’. You want to show them how hard their workout was compared to a year ago? Nope, can’t do that either, that’s ‘processing’ for the purposes of ‘analysis’. Want to create a heat map tile like VeloViewer has? Nope, that’s “aggregated” data for “insights generation”:
While Strava lawyers might try and say perhaps that line is there to prevent something else, any non-lawyer or lawyer would argue the opposite in court if they had to. That single paragraph basically says apps can’t do anything at all. Period.
The problem here is that Strava’s API terms are so broad and wonky now, that the API no longer serves a purpose, as stated by the above paragraph.
Nonetheless, I went back to Strava and asked them questions about many of these topics, trying to get clarification to see if this was a misunderstanding, they completely ignored the questions I had, and responded with:
“These changes were implemented to provide additional safeguards around our community’s data and to help ensure that a user’s Strava data can only be viewed by others on third-party apps in limited scenarios where sharing is both transparent and central to the functionality of the app. We recognize this is a change and are committed to working closely with partners during this transition.”
Point being, I gave them an opportunity to clarify things or set the record straight, and they said ‘nah’.
Add to that, they don’t seem all that committed to “working closely with partners”. As every single partner I’ve talked to over the last 24 hours has been completely broadsided by this change. They all received a generic e-mail Friday night, with a mere 30 days of notice to completely re-work their entire applications. Mind you, a 30-day period that includes the holidays (most companies would give at least 6 months of notice for something like this).
I suspect we’ll see a lot of companies just shut off the API entirely, and perhaps that’s Strava’s goal. Though, I fail to see how that benefits paying Strava subscribers, and thus Strava’s bottom line. Strava seems to be working very hard to kill off the community of tens of thousands of apps that arguably made it so popular.
No AI Usage & Analytics:
The next issue is just as crazy as the the others. It says that 3rd party apps may not use artificial intelligence processing in any way, for your data coming from Strava. Specifically, it stays the following:
“You may not use the Strava API Materials (including Strava Data), directly or indirectly, for any model training related to artificial intelligence, machine learning or similar applications.”
Of course, the term “machine learning or similar applications” basically means “you may not do any processing at all” on it, especially when combined with the above ‘no analytics’ clauses.
This particular line item immediately kills apps like TrainerRoad and Xert using data from Strava, but also countless other apps that pull in your own workout data via Strava, and then use some sort of processing to analyze it. Machine learning is hardly new or fancy. And putting in there “similar applications”, what on earth does that mean?
TrainerRoad and others use “AI” (however they want to define it), according to their marketing, and thus, in less than 30 days, they’ll have to cease their entire platform, or, disconnect Strava.
In the case of platforms like TrainerRoad, I suspect they’ll simply disable Strava altogether, and force everyone through direct connections. This will be fine for Garmin users, but as of right now there’s no inbound connection for Wahoo users (though that’s coming). And for people pushing Zwift workouts to TrainerRoad, that too will break until TrainerRoad completes their API connection in January.
But that won’t solve the larger issue TrainerRoad and other companies face, which is having to pull in the other 3rd party workout data types. TrainerRoad doesn’t have a connection to Suunto. Or Polar. Or AmazFit. Or Google. Or Fitbit. Or…I could do this all day. Strava solved that, to the benefit of both consumers and all companies involved.
Now Strava seems to want to own the “AI space” with its always-helpful AI insights that simply re-word my activity titles and tell me something vaguely positive but usually wrong.
Going Forward:
Based on these API terms changes, I don’t see how any apps can leverage Strava data going forward. Especially with the specific line item of “You may not process or disclose Strava Data, even publicly viewable 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.” – that’s fundamentally what any app does: It processes your Strava data and provides some sort of analytics.
Perhaps Strava will try and argue otherwise. In fact, I e-mailed them last night asking them to clarify these very questions, since these seemed pretty broad and impactful. The response was nothing more than sending me to the already-existing page about the API updates.
I feel at times that Strava wakes up each morning, heads to work, looks out over the San Francisco Bay from their offices, and asks itself: How can we anger our users and partners today? How can we make everyone’s life more difficult today?
Every time Strava does something good (such as last week’s night heat maps), they immediately go and ruin that good love with something to upset their user base. And obviously, that’s their prerogative as a company. But it just seems that no company in the sports tech space spends as much time and energy proactively trying to anger their users as Strava does.
“If you envision the whole active community, along with the connected fitness industry as sorta like one giant cycling peloton…then Strava should be leading the way. We should be your lead-out rider, blocking the wind, creating a slip-stream, helping the whole peloton move faster, and more efficiently.”
I’m unclear on how these changes fit with that recently announced vision.
Ultimately, I use and significantly enjoy the core of Strava as much as most other people. I’m on the platform daily. But man…c’mon Strava, just do better.
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It was time to leave Strava several years ago when they started locking your data behind a paywall. I exported my data at that time, deleted my account, and haven’t looked back. This latest move by them just shows that my choice was the correct one.
“It says that 3rd party apps may not use artificial intelligence processing in any way,”
Does it? I read it as Strava not allowing 3rd parties to use Strava data to -train- AI models, but an AI model trained by data that isn’t provided by the Strava API can still be used.
Per the e-mail, it’s clear they mean both training and non-training, saying:
“Our previous terms already prohibited the use of Strava data in large language models and other AI applications but we have made those restrictions more explicit in light of the growing activity in this space.”
(Note: Their previous terms actually didn’t prohibit that either, as it never included the terms AI, artificial intelligence, or large language models.)
Maybe this is in answer to a recent flurry of articles about the so-called “Strava leaks” (already reported on a few years ago) where stupid military personnel, head of state bodyguards etc were posting public, geo-localised activities on Strava, revealing confidential locations.
Probably they’re just trying to prevent AI companies to scrape their data for free and have a “plan” to monetize the data themselves.
But for sure, between the debacle of their recent routing “upgrade” and this, they really aren’t making a lot of friends.
If you can’t even process and use machine learning on your own data coming back from Strava, I’m not sure if that would even be legal in the EU?
For a company with a business model that’s 100% dependent on Garmin and Apple sending them data from their customers devices, Strava is pretty hostile towards everyone needing data from them. At some point that might backfire in pretty spectacular fashion.
the competitive advantage of strava is having so many apps built on top. with these changes they are killing most of them. that’s crazy. For all the affected companies,
for all the apps that need to transition, we are happy to help with Terra API
People use Strava due to the mass user effect. If you lose users, Strava loses relevance. Be it from a social platform standpoint (who’s who), from a routing standpoint (heatmap/etc data becomes less useful), or from a Segments standpoint (nobody is there that matters).
Strava fundamentally needs both free and paid users, no matter how much they try and tell themselves otherwise.
Wow, what a cluster. I’m on Wear OS, using the SportWerks app, and have all my workouts shipped to Training Peaks, where I’ve had things for over 15 years. Just for fun, since SportWerks allows me to, I’ve also had those workouts shipped to Strava as well for the last two years. I’ve often wondered how a company with the money, size, and might of Strava can put out an app (the Wear OS Strava app) that is so incredibly lame that it’s not even worth the “free” that it costs. After reading this, I now realize why, and that there’s a lot about this company that I don’t want to be around.
Absolutely no issue at all. Best of all, the workout is shipped as soon as you tap the “keep” button on your watch at the end of the workout. I usually get the ding on my watch before my HR has come down 20 bpm! I can see everything that is of value to me on a second-by-second basis (HR, GPS location, stride rate) and my “laps” in SW I have set at 1/4 miles so I also see my split times. Again, not to beat a dead horse, but how can a solo dev, working in his spare time, put out an app so powerful and flexible, and Strava puts out a POS that my old TomTom watch (circa 2015) was better than?
No worries. I’ve done a boatload of testing for this dev (entirely unreimbursed) simply because I want the best available app for our Wear OS devices and the pickings are so slim! Let me know if you have further questions.
Strava seems like they’re hellbent on being the Dallas Cowboys of social networks. Flashy, lots of fun things to look at, but getting worse and worse at the core product offering.
apart from collecting my data I do very little on there … I borrow other people’s routes / rides.
All my analytics is done either by my coach or by me using veloviewer.com
I view the annual subscription of 75€ as a payment to use Veloviewer (plus 10£ for Ben), not to use STRAVA.
If I can’t get what I get currently from Veloviewer because of their change it will be bye from me …
It’s unfortunate that they didn’t respond to you. I wonder if we’re over-reading the terms of ‘can’t do any analysis’ as an individual. The terms indicate that you can’t show any data to anyone other than the user…I feel like the *intent* of the analysis statement was to not do any additional analytics, etc. and show to others, etc. Basically it feels like VeloViewer is still in the realm of acceptable (sans end of year stuff). As I’m only looking at my data.
That said, the API provides convenience, but just as easy for someone like VeloViewer, others to basically say “manually export your data like this…then use our upload feature” and boom, they are NOT using any API agreement :-)
The API agreement is also not that clear. See those 2 bullet points out of the agreement:
– Strava Data provided by a specific user can only be displayed or disclosed in your Developer Application to that user. Strava Data related to other users, even if such data is publicly viewable on the Strava Platform, may not be displayed or disclosed.
– You must always respect Strava users and comply with their privacy choices. This includes not sharing a Strava user’s data with other users, end users of your application, or third parties without explicit consent
I love Strava, as do so many of my friends, training partners and club members. It’s a great place to connect and chat, and spy on how much faster than me they are! I understand they have to make Premium worth it and that means stopping third parties copy features but they are now stifling innovation. Killing Veloviewer will not go down well with a whole bunch of people including the pro cycling teams!
It strikes me as childish behaviour and and a blatant attempt to trap users into their system with no other opportunity to analyse metrics. I wouldn’t mind so much if they offered better analytical tools but they don’t. Veloviewer is great for getting nerdy and it genuinely helps me understand my performance when I’m being super critical about training efforts and races. Strava’s metrics don’t allow that.
I have Garmin devices so I guess Veloviewer could adapt to use that data instead but this just makes everything harder or even impossible for others.
We are a community of athletes who want to be fit and healthy – Strava doesn’t own that and this will backfire badly. U-turn within a week I reckon.
Strava was literally made off the back of data sharing APIs from Garmin, Polar etc. If these didn’t exist, Strava wouldn’t be where it is now. Also Strava has thrived from 3rd party devs enriching the experience. Now they think they’re big enough, they’ll kill it off.
They should embrace the position they are in. Instead only make themselves the data hub for subscribers. So if you are a Strava subscriber the apps linking to it, with your permission, will get the data. Then they can make more money, instead of less as now I’m considering terminating my subscription.
Strava has become THE data hub. It’s understandable that they do not want that cost w/o a reward. I think “data hub” services should be free to subscribers or available at a nominal cost as a standalone product.
Huh. Well I guess it’s their data, and they can decide how much to make it extensible, or not – they’ll have to live with the consequences though. I wonder if 12 months from now we’ll be looking back and saying, ‘man that was a dumb decision they made to kill off their overall API ecosystem’.
I’m guessing their management felt like too many other players were just existing solely off the Strava data and wanted to put an end to that model. Unfortunately, that’s a short-sighted move and it mean the beginning of the end for Strava. Time will tell….
Yeah, as in not the user’s data. Who apparently cannot in any way authorize an API client to analyze that data, or show it to someone else. Reducing apps to brainless third party client app. And what if the user’s mother happens to get a look at that third party client, or the user’s grandchild? Has the maker of the app broken the API agreement?
And no, “that’s not how it’s meant” does not matter. What matters is what it actually means, and if that’s not what they intended, tough luck for them.
Is it their data ? when you upload a photo to Apple or Google storage does that photo belong to Apple or Google ? the data belongs to you, yes they are the gate keepers of the data, and they need to keep it safe, but not allow you, to send your data to another platform for analysis is simply not correct
You created it, you uploaded it… you own it under EU GDPR as I understand GDPR. They are solely a Data Processor and / or Custodian.
They need to insure it is protected, not stolen, sold or inappropriately used, but they cannot prevent you from giving someone else access to it OR processing rights over it, NOR can the prevent you removing it, interrogating it, requesting its removal, deletion or correction.
I’m not a GDPR lawyer, but I do work in a dara environment and this feels like an overstep from Strava…
Do you think anyone like TrainingPeaks or other could jump in that space and build itself as a data inbound/outbound hub replicating Strava API stuff and find ways to profit from that?
I’m a cheap bastard, but I’d gladly pay $2/mo for “data hub” services. Much more than that and it starts to influence my decisions WRT what watch I buy.
Intervals.icu has an open API and plans to integrate with as many platforms as possible. Certainly matching Strava’s penetration is a long way off. But the goal is to make Intervals.icu the best data and analytics hub for athletes, coaches and sports scientists. And that means keeping it open.
Nitpick:
“ow Strava seems to want to own the the “AI space” with it’s always-helpful AI insights that simply re-word my activity titles and tell me something vaguely positive but usually wrong.”
If a rising tide raises all ships, seems like they pulled the drain plug, or are at least letting the tide out for a while. Any thoughts on how many users this will affect ? Would need some data that they will probably not disclose, but you could do a survey of users that might be accurate if you get a bit enough n (unless that data is restricted/limited by this too, haha). Just curious about how many users they’ll lose over this. My sense is not enough to make a dent in their revenues.
btw did you get a break on the annual subscription rate since the move, or are you still registered in the overpriced US market ? link to dcrainmaker.com
So basically Strava claims ownership of any data that a user uploads to Strava from elsewhere – e.g. a Garmin recording – , to the extent that they will actively prohibit any further processing of any data where Strava has functioned as an inbetween hub? And this would this include basic calculations like training load? That sounds.. extremely limiting. To the point that Strava loses its raison d’être.
Cancelled my subscription. Time to get off the platform completely. I guess the super(ficial) “dark” mode feature was them adopting even darker patterns.
About time that users just leave Strava. Garmin connect does the same. If it wasn’t for checking on friends routes…, which I recreate manually anyway not using strava.
This is like kidnapping, no thanks
Farewell Strava
It’s interesting too see that while we’ve see so many Sports Apps being launched since the Zwift boom, to try and get some market share, we still haven’t seen one App trying to compete with Strava.
All it would really take would be an App with a better segment management system, maybe done via AI, which is all people really care about on Strava. The social media part of posting rides is easy…
I went to the “Apps” section at my Strava profile an found this (translated from spanish):
“… There’s an app for every kind of person. Among such a wide variety, some allow you to analyze unique performance data or find a nearby friend who runs at the same pace as you…”
Maybe they should stop claiming something they don’t allow apps to do…
Seems sketchy for Strava to claim ownership over data that originated from me, and to place constraints on how I choose to use it, even though it comes via their platform.
Strava is just copying Reddit’s API playbook – to kill of any external API app integrations and to fully control their business’s data for AI. Reddit had a massive backlash but it worked for them eventually, I’m sure Strava expects the same.
Very different use case and Strava doesn’t restricts AI processing, it disallows *ALL* Strava data usage – basically, you can push data to Strava but can’t pull from it anymore.
I agree it doesn’t make sense, especially as Strava is really just a downstream app too. But I bet this was the MBA style thinking here. Probably looked genius in the boardroom PowerPoint. :)
I still remember Relive, we cannot even post links, and now even use 3rd party apps… Canceled my subscription for now. Strava reminds me of old Twitter lock-in and API changes, it went only downhill.
I just cancelled my Strava. If they want to play it this way, I’ll just stop using it. I can sync my stuff from Garmin to Intervals. I don’t need Strava. The leaderboards were fun, and the route building was quite good, but I can manage.
Strava must understand that they are using OUR data, and if I want to share MY data with someone else, that’s my choice, not theirs. I guess this is gonna cost them users.
Couldn’t stomach all the changes… finally switched off the auto-renew. They got my annual fee. In July I’ll find another platform, like Hybrid. There has to be a better option than Strava at this point. The last AI push, segment scrub and hazardous trail roundup killed it for me.
What is the definition of Strava Data ? the fit file I upload is not Stravas it is mine, all Strava do is store it, process it and use it to derive their own data. I can understand if they do not wish anybody to use their heatmaps or any other analytics they calculate, but to gate fence my data is not acceptable.
I’ve been a strava subscriber since day one they introduce a fee, I believe in supporting and paying for the services I use, this money goes towards providing a better service, when they effectively use my money to reduce my service, they force me to question my subscription.
It is due to review in 3 weeks, I’ve already cancelled it. Strava has committed suicide here, I also work in the software business, if a partner dumped this on me with 30 days notice I would instruct my team to not comply, but to remove integration.
Strava have forgotten something important, almost all of their content (certainly cycling) is provided by 3rd parties, only people who use their so-so App generate the content directly, they never truly own the data, very very sad.
The thing that always bothers me about these sort of changes with Strava is that their entire existence is dependent on Garmin, Polar etc. being an open ecosystem. I think it would be nice if Garmin et al would change their terms so that data used from their API must remain open.
I was one of the first 10K users of strava and early on encouraged others to join. Now I encourage people to not pay because it’s a company that is ridiculously tone deaf to its users.
strava seem to have really lost the plot. i guess they’re trying to find a way to make a profit out of the service they provide which is fair enough but in doing so they are destroying that service. its not as if strava themselves provide any meaningful data analysis, their value is in segments and social media.
anyway, i don’t see that it is “strava data” mine is actually garmin data which then feeds into strava so i await garmin’s reply in kind to strava. other people’s data may be from other platforms. some will actually be recording direct in strava in which case i guess it is strava data but strava are fortunate to have data fed to them from other platforms so should be open to feeding it on.
on a side note, the popup ads at the bottom-centre of the page keep stealing focus from the comment entry box. would be great if that could be avoided while maintaining your income
What a dick move. I not only cancelled my subscription, I also sent them a support email requesting refund for the ‘unused portion’ (renewed in September) of my annual subscription fee, as it’s pointless without 3rd party integrations.
I had been a Strava subscriber for over eight years, and just cancelled a few days ago because sites like Intervals.icu and VeloViewer have done a much better job implementing Strava’s “premium” features. I realized I’m not really paying for anything of value with Strava compared to the free version. This is probably part of why they are making the API change – if you can’t beat them, cut them off at the kneecaps, right?
Thanks for the heads up.
Tried to cancel my subscription on the website, it isn’t possible.
It only loads a blank page. Only way is to write an email according to that Chatbot supportthing.
We should all fill a complaint wich European Customer Protection, cancellation has always to be as easy as subscription.
That’s so crazy, and sound like it will kill off two of the main apps I use – wandrer.earth (has leaader boards and processes data) and activity fix (processes data to update information on the stava activity). And these are both so key to what I like to do, keeping me motivated and improving post activity workflow.
As a recreational rider, I’m tossing Strava into the same bit-bucket as my deleted Twitte… er…X account. They are free to leverage that as best they can.
Without Garmin, Strava would probably never have existed. It certainly wouldn’t have reached the level of ubiquity that it has. If Garmin pull their links to Strava, Strava is dead. And there’s no reason why they shouldn’t; Garmin’s own Connect app does a better job of performance analysis than Strava does and it would be relatively simple for Garmin to give more access to the app for data from other data providers, such as Apple Health – especially if Apple decided that Strava was no longer worth supporting. Bring Polar and Suunto in and allow users to bring their data into whichever proprietary app they wish and Strava would have nowhere to go but bankruptcy. Maybe that’s what they’re after?
I’m okay with the demise of any company that takes your data and says, “this is now our data, and you can’t use it anymore.”
I stopped using Strava about a year ago. All I did during my workouts was plan a clever description for Strava. Every workout was a race, and I wouldn’t do things like re-tie a loose shoe or stop at a water fountain because I didn’t want to slow my averages. And then I’d spend leisure time counting kudos. I’m a much happier athlete now that I’m not performing.
Yes, that says much more about me than about Strava. But try a Strava-fast for a few months and see if the workouts don’t get a lot more enjoyable.
Someone guide me – if I cancel my subscription what’s my best choice for routing road bike, MTB, and trail running? Ideally also syncs to Garmin like Strava does (for now).
RideWithGPS. They have amazing routing, some analytics, and are bootstrapped and profitable. I’ve paid more to RWGPS than I ever did to Strava. Oh! And… if you send them a message asking a question, you’ll get a response within 24 hours (at least that’s been the case for me).
I’m still amazed at how much money Strava has taken on while other apps still manage to do more with less. It’s a Tech-bro Black Hole.
My guess is that there’s a TrainerRoad deal and integration announcement incoming and a lot of these changes are driven by TR wanting to build a moat around this data stream
Heh, in case you ever wondered what a super annoyed DCR would be like, watch this video.
If I were making a third party app, I wouldn’t even put half a thought into maybe offering a compliant version of my client, just focus on migrating to the hardware makers’ clouds, on preparing users that Strava connection might go away.
Wow, those people *really* don’t understand the market they happen to dominate, apparently out of luck alone.
November fools day?
This seems like the problem with having one main company controlling a space like this. They can pull the rug out at anytime. Will be interesting to see if they shoot themselves in the foot at the same time.
I think Garmin, Wahoo, and all the other device makers should adopt a similar policy – no access to “their” data without permission. Then immediately grant permission to other analytics platforms -Trainer Road, Training Peaks, etc. and cut Strava completely out of the picture, so the only data they get is from the Strava phone app. I doubt many of their users (an fewer still paid users) are using their phones as primary fitness devices.
I think if Garmin alone did this, Strava would die, and I doubt it would hurt Garmin at all, and might drive users to their site.
I hoped to get my app finished this year, but now I’m questioning the value. It uses a machine learning model and completes some analysis of your performance.
That they can do this without fear of having their lunch eaten by a competitor just shows what a monopoly Strava has.
Disappointing. I canceled my Strava subscription last week because the watered down heatmap is no longer useful when planning less popular routes (which only accumulate public tracks over more than one season). Luckily, all the apps I use are connected directly to Garmin, and I just severed the link between Garmin and Strava.
I won’t be missing the made up AI insights either.
Strava premium user from the beginning, along with my wife. If these changes are as bad as reported, we’ll cancel our premium accounts and use Garmin Connect. I also use Golden Cheetah, which is ridiculously powerful. Another company destroying their loyal user base.
The thing here it’s not Strava’s data – it’s my data. It’s pretty much the same with their very badly worded terms and conditions about what they can do with *my data* re them doing AI on it. Which basically says anything they want, even if they claim they don’t do that. Already I’ve stopped giving them most of my data because of that; this will just drive more people away.
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It was time to leave Strava several years ago when they started locking your data behind a paywall. I exported my data at that time, deleted my account, and haven’t looked back. This latest move by them just shows that my choice was the correct one.
“It says that 3rd party apps may not use artificial intelligence processing in any way,”
Does it? I read it as Strava not allowing 3rd parties to use Strava data to -train- AI models, but an AI model trained by data that isn’t provided by the Strava API can still be used.
Per the e-mail, it’s clear they mean both training and non-training, saying:
“Our previous terms already prohibited the use of Strava data in large language models and other AI applications but we have made those restrictions more explicit in light of the growing activity in this space.”
(Note: Their previous terms actually didn’t prohibit that either, as it never included the terms AI, artificial intelligence, or large language models.)
But… not for analytics…
Maybe this is in answer to a recent flurry of articles about the so-called “Strava leaks” (already reported on a few years ago) where stupid military personnel, head of state bodyguards etc were posting public, geo-localised activities on Strava, revealing confidential locations.
Probably they’re just trying to prevent AI companies to scrape their data for free and have a “plan” to monetize the data themselves.
But for sure, between the debacle of their recent routing “upgrade” and this, they really aren’t making a lot of friends.
You can do that by logging into strava and mine all the data you want.
Well, I for one, will break my garmin connection to Strava. Thanks for all the fun strava.
If you can’t even process and use machine learning on your own data coming back from Strava, I’m not sure if that would even be legal in the EU?
For a company with a business model that’s 100% dependent on Garmin and Apple sending them data from their customers devices, Strava is pretty hostile towards everyone needing data from them. At some point that might backfire in pretty spectacular fashion.
Be really interesting if Garmin and apple did just this and stopped Strava using data received from 3rd party devices.
Exactly what I was thinking. And Garmin could open up their system to non-Garmin users, for a small fee.
It is… like the way Strava behaves… (Relive, IronMan Virtual, etc…)
the competitive advantage of strava is having so many apps built on top. with these changes they are killing most of them. that’s crazy. For all the affected companies,
for all the apps that need to transition, we are happy to help with Terra API
“the competitive advantage of strava is having so many apps built on top.”
What’s the competitive advantage there? Strava’s “data hub” functionality doesn’t require a subscription.
People use Strava due to the mass user effect. If you lose users, Strava loses relevance. Be it from a social platform standpoint (who’s who), from a routing standpoint (heatmap/etc data becomes less useful), or from a Segments standpoint (nobody is there that matters).
Strava fundamentally needs both free and paid users, no matter how much they try and tell themselves otherwise.
Wow, what a cluster. I’m on Wear OS, using the SportWerks app, and have all my workouts shipped to Training Peaks, where I’ve had things for over 15 years. Just for fun, since SportWerks allows me to, I’ve also had those workouts shipped to Strava as well for the last two years. I’ve often wondered how a company with the money, size, and might of Strava can put out an app (the Wear OS Strava app) that is so incredibly lame that it’s not even worth the “free” that it costs. After reading this, I now realize why, and that there’s a lot about this company that I don’t want to be around.
I’m about to switch to SportWerks. How seamless is the TP integration? (I’d be using Intervals.ICU but…)
Absolutely no issue at all. Best of all, the workout is shipped as soon as you tap the “keep” button on your watch at the end of the workout. I usually get the ding on my watch before my HR has come down 20 bpm! I can see everything that is of value to me on a second-by-second basis (HR, GPS location, stride rate) and my “laps” in SW I have set at 1/4 miles so I also see my split times. Again, not to beat a dead horse, but how can a solo dev, working in his spare time, put out an app so powerful and flexible, and Strava puts out a POS that my old TomTom watch (circa 2015) was better than?
Sounds good and sounds like the only thing I need to really dive into is getting data from Wear OS to Stryd Powercenter.
Thanks!
No worries. I’ve done a boatload of testing for this dev (entirely unreimbursed) simply because I want the best available app for our Wear OS devices and the pickings are so slim! Let me know if you have further questions.
Strava seems like they’re hellbent on being the Dallas Cowboys of social networks. Flashy, lots of fun things to look at, but getting worse and worse at the core product offering.
This is a brave move from STRAVA ….
apart from collecting my data I do very little on there … I borrow other people’s routes / rides.
All my analytics is done either by my coach or by me using veloviewer.com
I view the annual subscription of 75€ as a payment to use Veloviewer (plus 10£ for Ben), not to use STRAVA.
If I can’t get what I get currently from Veloviewer because of their change it will be bye from me …
It’s unfortunate that they didn’t respond to you. I wonder if we’re over-reading the terms of ‘can’t do any analysis’ as an individual. The terms indicate that you can’t show any data to anyone other than the user…I feel like the *intent* of the analysis statement was to not do any additional analytics, etc. and show to others, etc. Basically it feels like VeloViewer is still in the realm of acceptable (sans end of year stuff). As I’m only looking at my data.
That said, the API provides convenience, but just as easy for someone like VeloViewer, others to basically say “manually export your data like this…then use our upload feature” and boom, they are NOT using any API agreement :-)
I agree it feels like intent vs what’s written is disconnected here. But that’s a section they revamped from previous, to make it more restrictive.
And again, as you noted, they had the opportunity to clarify, and chose not to.
The API agreement is also not that clear. See those 2 bullet points out of the agreement:
– Strava Data provided by a specific user can only be displayed or disclosed in your Developer Application to that user. Strava Data related to other users, even if such data is publicly viewable on the Strava Platform, may not be displayed or disclosed.
– You must always respect Strava users and comply with their privacy choices. This includes not sharing a Strava user’s data with other users, end users of your application, or third parties without explicit consent
Goodbye Strava – I have been a premium user for years on end and I will not review my subscription based on this.
I love Strava, as do so many of my friends, training partners and club members. It’s a great place to connect and chat, and spy on how much faster than me they are! I understand they have to make Premium worth it and that means stopping third parties copy features but they are now stifling innovation. Killing Veloviewer will not go down well with a whole bunch of people including the pro cycling teams!
It strikes me as childish behaviour and and a blatant attempt to trap users into their system with no other opportunity to analyse metrics. I wouldn’t mind so much if they offered better analytical tools but they don’t. Veloviewer is great for getting nerdy and it genuinely helps me understand my performance when I’m being super critical about training efforts and races. Strava’s metrics don’t allow that.
I have Garmin devices so I guess Veloviewer could adapt to use that data instead but this just makes everything harder or even impossible for others.
We are a community of athletes who want to be fit and healthy – Strava doesn’t own that and this will backfire badly. U-turn within a week I reckon.
Do you remember when they killed Relive?
Every few years Strava does something similar
For those that don’t remember: link to dcrainmaker.com
And even further back: link to dcrainmaker.com
Im a paying user of Relive, Garmin integrations rules ;-D
Hope either Statshunter or Veloviewer integrates Garmin direct, I will gladly pay for it.
I wonder if Ray will now lose his Strava account, given he had critical comments about these changes to the user community… 🤔
Oh Noo ! Ray ! I hope you don’t lose your account before the annual Getting the Christmas Tree Home via Bike post
Thankfully said removal only applies to the Strava Community Hub, their forums.
Strava was literally made off the back of data sharing APIs from Garmin, Polar etc. If these didn’t exist, Strava wouldn’t be where it is now. Also Strava has thrived from 3rd party devs enriching the experience. Now they think they’re big enough, they’ll kill it off.
What a weird move.
They should embrace the position they are in. Instead only make themselves the data hub for subscribers. So if you are a Strava subscriber the apps linking to it, with your permission, will get the data. Then they can make more money, instead of less as now I’m considering terminating my subscription.
I agree.
Strava has become THE data hub. It’s understandable that they do not want that cost w/o a reward. I think “data hub” services should be free to subscribers or available at a nominal cost as a standalone product.
Huh. Well I guess it’s their data, and they can decide how much to make it extensible, or not – they’ll have to live with the consequences though. I wonder if 12 months from now we’ll be looking back and saying, ‘man that was a dumb decision they made to kill off their overall API ecosystem’.
I’m guessing their management felt like too many other players were just existing solely off the Strava data and wanted to put an end to that model. Unfortunately, that’s a short-sighted move and it mean the beginning of the end for Strava. Time will tell….
“Well I guess it’s their data”
Yeah, as in not the user’s data. Who apparently cannot in any way authorize an API client to analyze that data, or show it to someone else. Reducing apps to brainless third party client app. And what if the user’s mother happens to get a look at that third party client, or the user’s grandchild? Has the maker of the app broken the API agreement?
And no, “that’s not how it’s meant” does not matter. What matters is what it actually means, and if that’s not what they intended, tough luck for them.
Is it their data ? when you upload a photo to Apple or Google storage does that photo belong to Apple or Google ? the data belongs to you, yes they are the gate keepers of the data, and they need to keep it safe, but not allow you, to send your data to another platform for analysis is simply not correct
Is it their, ie Strava’s, data?
You created it, you uploaded it… you own it under EU GDPR as I understand GDPR. They are solely a Data Processor and / or Custodian.
They need to insure it is protected, not stolen, sold or inappropriately used, but they cannot prevent you from giving someone else access to it OR processing rights over it, NOR can the prevent you removing it, interrogating it, requesting its removal, deletion or correction.
I’m not a GDPR lawyer, but I do work in a dara environment and this feels like an overstep from Strava…
“Strava benefits because they’ve become the defecto platform of choice for consumers…”
I vote me make “defecto” the new way to describe something that everyone uses because it’s the only option, but it’s a crappy option.
I noticed the exact same typo. I was also going to point this out, but I fully expected Ray to reply with, “I said what I said.” LOL
Do you think anyone like TrainingPeaks or other could jump in that space and build itself as a data inbound/outbound hub replicating Strava API stuff and find ways to profit from that?
I’m a cheap bastard, but I’d gladly pay $2/mo for “data hub” services. Much more than that and it starts to influence my decisions WRT what watch I buy.
Yep some hub platform needs to exist that does nothing but route workout files in and out.
Intervals.icu has an open API and plans to integrate with as many platforms as possible. Certainly matching Strava’s penetration is a long way off. But the goal is to make Intervals.icu the best data and analytics hub for athletes, coaches and sports scientists. And that means keeping it open.
Great summary of a huge issue.
Nitpick:
“ow Strava seems to want to own the the “AI space” with it’s always-helpful AI insights that simply re-word my activity titles and tell me something vaguely positive but usually wrong.”
“it’s” = “it is”. You mean the possessive “its”.
“You may not process or disclose Strava Data… for the purposes of… products or services improvements.” – I *love* this part, it is ingenious!
I just canceled my Strava subscription and recommend everyone to do the same.
If a rising tide raises all ships, seems like they pulled the drain plug, or are at least letting the tide out for a while. Any thoughts on how many users this will affect ? Would need some data that they will probably not disclose, but you could do a survey of users that might be accurate if you get a bit enough n (unless that data is restricted/limited by this too, haha). Just curious about how many users they’ll lose over this. My sense is not enough to make a dent in their revenues.
btw did you get a break on the annual subscription rate since the move, or are you still registered in the overpriced US market ?
link to dcrainmaker.com
So basically Strava claims ownership of any data that a user uploads to Strava from elsewhere – e.g. a Garmin recording – , to the extent that they will actively prohibit any further processing of any data where Strava has functioned as an inbetween hub? And this would this include basic calculations like training load? That sounds.. extremely limiting. To the point that Strava loses its raison d’être.
Cancelled my subscription. Time to get off the platform completely. I guess the super(ficial) “dark” mode feature was them adopting even darker patterns.
I guess the only thing we can do is cancel our subs and hope the hit to the bottom line makes a difference.
About time that users just leave Strava. Garmin connect does the same. If it wasn’t for checking on friends routes…, which I recreate manually anyway not using strava.
This is like kidnapping, no thanks
Farewell Strava
Strava only gets my data because it links to my Garmin. Does Strava expect others like Garmin to do nothing about this?
It’s interesting too see that while we’ve see so many Sports Apps being launched since the Zwift boom, to try and get some market share, we still haven’t seen one App trying to compete with Strava.
All it would really take would be an App with a better segment management system, maybe done via AI, which is all people really care about on Strava. The social media part of posting rides is easy…
What is Wahoo or even Garmin waiting??
Garmin tried, its all there:
-Garmin Segments
-Livetracking (Strava Beacon)
-Friends
-Groups
-Feed
-Pictures to activities
-Gamification (Challenges, Badges, Leaderboards)
But do you use it?
Sometimes I attach a pic to an activity in Connect, but for me and not my 3 connections.
I went to the “Apps” section at my Strava profile an found this (translated from spanish):
“… There’s an app for every kind of person. Among such a wide variety, some allow you to analyze unique performance data or find a nearby friend who runs at the same pace as you…”
Maybe they should stop claiming something they don’t allow apps to do…
Seems sketchy for Strava to claim ownership over data that originated from me, and to place constraints on how I choose to use it, even though it comes via their platform.
100% correct
Why should Strava have to send your data to another app? If you want to use that app, upload your data there.
Strava is just copying Reddit’s API playbook – to kill of any external API app integrations and to fully control their business’s data for AI. Reddit had a massive backlash but it worked for them eventually, I’m sure Strava expects the same.
Very different use case and Strava doesn’t restricts AI processing, it disallows *ALL* Strava data usage – basically, you can push data to Strava but can’t pull from it anymore.
I agree it doesn’t make sense, especially as Strava is really just a downstream app too. But I bet this was the MBA style thinking here. Probably looked genius in the boardroom PowerPoint. :)
I still remember Relive, we cannot even post links, and now even use 3rd party apps… Canceled my subscription for now. Strava reminds me of old Twitter lock-in and API changes, it went only downhill.
I just cancelled my Strava. If they want to play it this way, I’ll just stop using it. I can sync my stuff from Garmin to Intervals. I don’t need Strava. The leaderboards were fun, and the route building was quite good, but I can manage.
Strava must understand that they are using OUR data, and if I want to share MY data with someone else, that’s my choice, not theirs. I guess this is gonna cost them users.
Couldn’t stomach all the changes… finally switched off the auto-renew. They got my annual fee. In July I’ll find another platform, like Hybrid. There has to be a better option than Strava at this point. The last AI push, segment scrub and hazardous trail roundup killed it for me.
It’s actually pretty amazing how poorly Strava is managed. How do they repeatedly make ridiculous decisions like this?
What is the definition of Strava Data ? the fit file I upload is not Stravas it is mine, all Strava do is store it, process it and use it to derive their own data. I can understand if they do not wish anybody to use their heatmaps or any other analytics they calculate, but to gate fence my data is not acceptable.
I’ve been a strava subscriber since day one they introduce a fee, I believe in supporting and paying for the services I use, this money goes towards providing a better service, when they effectively use my money to reduce my service, they force me to question my subscription.
It is due to review in 3 weeks, I’ve already cancelled it. Strava has committed suicide here, I also work in the software business, if a partner dumped this on me with 30 days notice I would instruct my team to not comply, but to remove integration.
Strava have forgotten something important, almost all of their content (certainly cycling) is provided by 3rd parties, only people who use their so-so App generate the content directly, they never truly own the data, very very sad.
The thing that always bothers me about these sort of changes with Strava is that their entire existence is dependent on Garmin, Polar etc. being an open ecosystem. I think it would be nice if Garmin et al would change their terms so that data used from their API must remain open.
I was one of the first 10K users of strava and early on encouraged others to join. Now I encourage people to not pay because it’s a company that is ridiculously tone deaf to its users.
strava seem to have really lost the plot. i guess they’re trying to find a way to make a profit out of the service they provide which is fair enough but in doing so they are destroying that service. its not as if strava themselves provide any meaningful data analysis, their value is in segments and social media.
anyway, i don’t see that it is “strava data” mine is actually garmin data which then feeds into strava so i await garmin’s reply in kind to strava. other people’s data may be from other platforms. some will actually be recording direct in strava in which case i guess it is strava data but strava are fortunate to have data fed to them from other platforms so should be open to feeding it on.
on a side note, the popup ads at the bottom-centre of the page keep stealing focus from the comment entry box. would be great if that could be avoided while maintaining your income
Just become a subscriber
What a dick move. I not only cancelled my subscription, I also sent them a support email requesting refund for the ‘unused portion’ (renewed in September) of my annual subscription fee, as it’s pointless without 3rd party integrations.
I had been a Strava subscriber for over eight years, and just cancelled a few days ago because sites like Intervals.icu and VeloViewer have done a much better job implementing Strava’s “premium” features. I realized I’m not really paying for anything of value with Strava compared to the free version. This is probably part of why they are making the API change – if you can’t beat them, cut them off at the kneecaps, right?
Thanks for the heads up.
Tried to cancel my subscription on the website, it isn’t possible.
It only loads a blank page. Only way is to write an email according to that Chatbot supportthing.
We should all fill a complaint wich European Customer Protection, cancellation has always to be as easy as subscription.
That’s so crazy, and sound like it will kill off two of the main apps I use – wandrer.earth (has leaader boards and processes data) and activity fix (processes data to update information on the stava activity). And these are both so key to what I like to do, keeping me motivated and improving post activity workflow.
sigh!
As a recreational rider, I’m tossing Strava into the same bit-bucket as my deleted Twitte… er…X account. They are free to leverage that as best they can.
Well.. looks like we know what the q&a session this Saturday is gonna be focused on hahah
Without Garmin, Strava would probably never have existed. It certainly wouldn’t have reached the level of ubiquity that it has. If Garmin pull their links to Strava, Strava is dead. And there’s no reason why they shouldn’t; Garmin’s own Connect app does a better job of performance analysis than Strava does and it would be relatively simple for Garmin to give more access to the app for data from other data providers, such as Apple Health – especially if Apple decided that Strava was no longer worth supporting. Bring Polar and Suunto in and allow users to bring their data into whichever proprietary app they wish and Strava would have nowhere to go but bankruptcy. Maybe that’s what they’re after?
I’ve been a premium subscriber since they first offered subscriptions, but I just canceled.
I’m okay with the demise of any company that takes your data and says, “this is now our data, and you can’t use it anymore.”
I stopped using Strava about a year ago. All I did during my workouts was plan a clever description for Strava. Every workout was a race, and I wouldn’t do things like re-tie a loose shoe or stop at a water fountain because I didn’t want to slow my averages. And then I’d spend leisure time counting kudos. I’m a much happier athlete now that I’m not performing.
Yes, that says much more about me than about Strava. But try a Strava-fast for a few months and see if the workouts don’t get a lot more enjoyable.
Aaaaaaand this kind of stuff is why I pulled the Strava plug this summer
Someone guide me – if I cancel my subscription what’s my best choice for routing road bike, MTB, and trail running? Ideally also syncs to Garmin like Strava does (for now).
RideWithGPS. They have amazing routing, some analytics, and are bootstrapped and profitable. I’ve paid more to RWGPS than I ever did to Strava. Oh! And… if you send them a message asking a question, you’ll get a response within 24 hours (at least that’s been the case for me).
I’m still amazed at how much money Strava has taken on while other apps still manage to do more with less. It’s a Tech-bro Black Hole.
Screw this. Canceling my sub – ain’t their data, it’s mine.
My guess is that there’s a TrainerRoad deal and integration announcement incoming and a lot of these changes are driven by TR wanting to build a moat around this data stream
But TR is arguably the one most impacted here short-term?
I’m confused, how is TR building a moat?
Heh, in case you ever wondered what a super annoyed DCR would be like, watch this video.
If I were making a third party app, I wouldn’t even put half a thought into maybe offering a compliant version of my client, just focus on migrating to the hardware makers’ clouds, on preparing users that Strava connection might go away.
Wow, those people *really* don’t understand the market they happen to dominate, apparently out of luck alone.
November fools day?
This seems like the problem with having one main company controlling a space like this. They can pull the rug out at anytime. Will be interesting to see if they shoot themselves in the foot at the same time.
Strava is becoming increasingly worthless
Is Strava contemplating an IPO in the near future? Because this smells like something a company preparing for an IP would do.
I think Garmin, Wahoo, and all the other device makers should adopt a similar policy – no access to “their” data without permission. Then immediately grant permission to other analytics platforms -Trainer Road, Training Peaks, etc. and cut Strava completely out of the picture, so the only data they get is from the Strava phone app. I doubt many of their users (an fewer still paid users) are using their phones as primary fitness devices.
I think if Garmin alone did this, Strava would die, and I doubt it would hurt Garmin at all, and might drive users to their site.
I hoped to get my app finished this year, but now I’m questioning the value. It uses a machine learning model and completes some analysis of your performance.
That they can do this without fear of having their lunch eaten by a competitor just shows what a monopoly Strava has.
Disappointing. I canceled my Strava subscription last week because the watered down heatmap is no longer useful when planning less popular routes (which only accumulate public tracks over more than one season). Luckily, all the apps I use are connected directly to Garmin, and I just severed the link between Garmin and Strava.
I won’t be missing the made up AI insights either.
Strava premium user from the beginning, along with my wife. If these changes are as bad as reported, we’ll cancel our premium accounts and use Garmin Connect. I also use Golden Cheetah, which is ridiculously powerful. Another company destroying their loyal user base.
The thing here it’s not Strava’s data – it’s my data. It’s pretty much the same with their very badly worded terms and conditions about what they can do with *my data* re them doing AI on it. Which basically says anything they want, even if they claim they don’t do that. Already I’ve stopped giving them most of my data because of that; this will just drive more people away.
Veloviewer premium is the only reason I paid for Strava. I just cancelled my Strava membership which was set to renew in 2 weeks.
By the way: I didn’t get the e-mai
Is this announcement for subscribers only?