An Update To Our Developer Program | Community
communityhub.strava.com
At Strava, we care deeply about developers, and the health of the developer ecosystem. There are now 241,000 Strava API developers, up from 185,000 last year. At its best, the Strava API allows users to utilize their favorite wearable, developers to build innovative businesses, and users to interact...

https://communityhub.strava.com/insider-journal-9/an-update-to-our-developer-program-13428

The gist of it is that Strava just killed its free API, and will now require developers to have a subscription.

At Strava, we care deeply about developers, and the health of the developer ecosystem. There are now 241,000 Strava API developers, up from 185,000 last year. Starting today, all current and future applications will automatically receive access to the Standard developer tier. This allows you to serve up to 10 athletes and start building immediately, completely eliminating the previous queue.

This essentially kills thousands of tools people build using the free API.

If you’re looking to move away from Strava, so far I’ve found four open source alternatives:

  • CubeTrek - Open-source GPS track manager with 3D topography visualization for outdoor activities.
  • Endurain - Self-hosted fitness tracking service for running, cycling, and more with full data control.
  • RunnerUp - An open source run tracker for Android.
  • Geo Activity Playground - Data analysis and visualization based on GPS tracked outdoor activities.
  • OpenTracks - A privacy-focused sport tracking application for Android that records GPS tracks and supports Bluetooth sensors without any internet access or ads.
  • Aneorthisio@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1·
    27 days ago

    Build a product -> make it free or very affordable -> create dependency -> collect user data to improve product resulting in more dependency -> create a near market monopoly if possible -> make it paid only or make the free version a lot worse so users have to pay -> cross fingers that no alternative emerges or just buy it and shut it down if you can.

    Always the same pattern.

  • noahm@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    28 days ago

    Because of investor pressure to generate actual meaningful revenue, Strava is going to rapidly enshittify leading up to their IPO and after it. The unfortunate thing is that they’ll largely get away with it, because there’s really no alternative for users to move to.

      • noahm@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        27 days ago

        There are many alternatives for tracking and analyzing performance data, but I’d posit that that’s not what most Strava users do there. For most of them, it’s a social network, and that’s it’s focus as it goes public. There’s no alternative “athlete focused” social network that allows planning and organizing group activities, has tight integration of activity info (e.g. tracking that the group bike ride averaged 20mph over this route, or that person X and I competed in the same park run, and here’s the finishing time for each of us, along with a few photos and some performance data like pace and heart rate).

          • noahm@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            25 days ago

            Social features do not make a social network. Maybe it’s just where I cycle (Northeast and Northwest USA) but approximately 100% of the people that I ride with post their rides to Strava. That is what makes it a social network.

            Further, all of the alternatives that you listed have limitations that prevent them from being viable alternatives to Strava even if people were interested in migrating. Mainly these are related to device integration.