Strava and Our Data

A few weeks ago Strava decided that it would add AI functionality to it’s app. It is for this reason that I decided to restrict which apps talked with Strava. Now Strava is doing the reverse. It has blocked access to its API so that other apps cannot use its own data.

This, in my eyes is short sighted. Strava is not the primary source of data. Garmin, Sunnto, Apple and others are. This means that if Strava makes it more complicated data from their platform, then they encourage people to bypass it entirely. It gives Garmin, Apple and Suunto to name but three device makers the chance to work directly with those that provide data analytics.

A few years ago I was a paying customer of Strava but as their price went up the justification for spending went down. By reducing functionality for paying customers to share their data with third parties they undercut their own market. If I was paying for Strava Premium, and for a third party app that processes data once it has been through Strava, then I would look to link Garmin directly with Training Peaks or other apps. Suunto and Garmin already make this very easy.

If Garmin, Suunto and Apple took the same attitude as Strava, then Strava would need to design their own devices and convince people to buy them. Strava is a middle man. It depends on other people feeding it data.

And Finally

This doesn’t affect me in the least. I play with native apps and Strava is just the “social” app. I don’t rely on its analysis for anything, mainly because it’s not worth 80 CHF per year. When I did pay for Strava it was about 67 CHF per year and there were no investors and dividends for Strava to pay so they focused on user experience.

In summary, if Strava wants to restrict what third party apps can see, I would just connect my devices directly to the coaching tools, and forget about Strava. In most cases it takes seconds to do and works well.