It’s been something of a tumultuous few months for Strava after an unannounced, and by now widely-reported, price hike late last year was met with anger and frustration from users worldwide.
Economic headwinds are making themselves felt across a range of sectors currently and the cycling industry is no different, with a number of company layoffs taking place over the last few months. There have also been reports of staff redundancies of up to 15% at Strava itself.
There have been several updates and press releases on this topic, but since the start of this month marks the time when certain subscription prices will increase for users, we have pulled together an overview and timeline of the story from start up until this point.
What happened and when?
It’s worth mentioning before we go down the rabbit hole that free Strava subscriptions exist, where for no charge, you can access a portion of the features that paying premium-membership subscribers get. The issues however concern Strava’s paying customers.
At the back end of last year, it became apparent that Strava planned to increase membership charges across the globe for the first time in around a decade. As reported by BikeRadar (opens in new tab), monthly membership fees would increase by 28% from £6.99 to £8.99 in the UK, totalling £107.88 for the year when paying monthly. For customers paying for a yearly membership plan, the cost would rise by a smaller amount, 14%, from £47.99 to £54.99. This also highlighted the fact that it’s significantly cheaper to purchase a yearly membership and it would seem Strava would much prefer users to do this.
It quickly became clear, though, that the new pricing structure varied dramatically in different regions of the world and for different customers. Frustration followed when it became apparent it was difficult for users to find out exactly how much they would be paying, and when.
Users reacted with anger at the proposed price change with many levelling claims that Strava had quietly and deliberately rolled out the changes with minimal communication to end users.
When the company did finally provide something of an apology, it was on the Strava Cycling club in-app group, an overview of which can be read in full in a detailed piece from DC Rainmaker (opens in new tab).
Illegality claims
Strava has since released a statement on its website where it claims it is moving…
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