
Strava cuts off Relive - tomverhoeff
https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2019/07/strava-relive-cc-app-platform-dispute.html
======
slashdotdash
I’ve personally suffered the same fate as Relive with Strava cutting off
access to their API for a side project of mine [1]. They gave me twenty
minutes notice via email before disabling access and effectively killing my
app.

Ostensibly the reason was due to competing with a feature that Strava intend
to build themselves (“thanks for proving the demand”). This was back in March,
I’ve since been informed that access won’t ever be reinstated so have open
sourced the code [2].

Lesson learnt, don’t depend entirely on third party APIs.

[1] [https://segmentchallenge.com/](https://segmentchallenge.com/)

[2] [https://github.com/slashdotdash/segment-
challenge](https://github.com/slashdotdash/segment-challenge)

~~~
mkwng
I think it's a bit more nuanced than just "don't depend entirely on third
party APIs," rather make sure that your API provider benefits from your use of
their services expanding. [1] Issues only arise when your success comes at the
expense of the API provider, whether thats by poaching a potential audience or
otherwise.

[1] [https://mkwng.substack.com/p/whose-problem-is-
this](https://mkwng.substack.com/p/whose-problem-is-this)

~~~
Mirioron
And because you can never know what your API provider wants to expand into
next, you effectively shouldn't rely on third party APIs. Strava could very
well see that some product using their API is doing well and decide to fill
the same niche themselves. Once Strava's product is up and running they can
just kill off access to the other one.

~~~
pedalpete
Is providing the service to the API providers competitors not somewhat
creating a bit of defense in this situation? If every app can do it through a
partner which is focused on that feature, is there a real benefit to the app
building their own solution?

I think this is Relive's misstep, though time will tell. They have all of the
major apps as part of their API now, but they've also started directly
competing with these app, giving the app creators an incentive to compete
right back.

I do have a dog in this fight as the founder of
[https://ayvri.com](https://ayvri.com) which creates interactive 3D videos,
used for sports and other domains.

~~~
close04
It gives the API provider the opportunity to let others take the risk and
build a market for a potential feature. Then if the market is there they just
cut access to the API for the others and and build that feature into their own
app. This way the API provider always reaps the benefits and pushes back any
app before they start to compete directly.

And while less developers will be incentivized to use the API seeing this
behavior, very few can actually afford to launch a proper competitor. So
plenty will continue do develop with this philosophy in mind, knowing that if
it's successful they will be cut off but hoping they make enough and then just
pivot to the next thing.

------
drizze
The "my data" vs "strava data" is probably the reason why they've left this
bug in Apple Health syncing unresolved for years, despite there being good
facilities for de-duping workouts in HealthKit.

[https://support.strava.com/hc/en-
us/articles/206393444-Dupli...](https://support.strava.com/hc/en-
us/articles/206393444-Duplicate-entries-of-Strava-data-in-Health)

By de-prioritizing the use of Apple Health as a central store for all your
personal fitness data, it makes Strava the one place for all your workouts and
allows them to dictate how its used.

Now, I record all my Workout data in Apple Workouts with an Apple Watch, then
sync them to other platforms using this fantastic little app to export the
data in any way I want.

[https://apps.apple.com/us/app/healthfit/id1202650514](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/healthfit/id1202650514)

~~~
trollied
+1 for healthfit. So glad I discovered it! I do exactly the same as you. I bar
any other fitness apps from writing data directly to Apple Health (but allow
them to read), with the exception of my Withings scales that are allowed to
only write weight data.

Apple Health has really come into its own as of late, and I'm pleased for it
to be my central health-oriented repo. It's so so pretty in iOS 13 too.

~~~
8ytecoder
I have tried both RunGap and HealthFit. RunGap seems better with more
integrations. Including a way to sync to iCloud.

~~~
nacs
Just looked both of them up, looks like HealthFit also has automatic iCloud
uploads.

Also Healthfit is $3 one-time while RunGap is a yearly subscription of $8 per
year.

------
steve_adams_86
It's such a drag how far Strava has fallen. 7 years ago I thought they were a
stellar example of how tech can be helpful and innovative in simple but
meaningful ways. Now nothing of interest has happened in several years and
what has been added almost takes away from what was good in some ways.

I think Strava was a passion project for some people working there a decade
ago, but I suspect they're long gone and the people there now have much
different objectives and leadership.

I think I'll delete my account. Does anyone know of an up and coming
alternative? This space seems to be loaded with great apps that kinda lost
steam and fell into decline.

~~~
drstewart
Why does it need to have new things of interest? Strava works perfectly. I
love that it hasn't significantly changed its model in constant search of
squeezing out profits.

~~~
rckclmbr
Strava is a horrible implementation that has done basically nothing for core
functionality in several years. I'm tempted daily to make an alternative and
just give it away for free, maybe ad supported. The cost to operate the
features they currently have can't be bad -- there are dozens of videogame
stats website that do essentially the same thing, with more data.

* It's pretty ridiculous that I can see others 12-week history, and even my own on the website or iOS, but I need Strava Premium to see my own on Android.

* No bulk updating

* Very unsatisfactory implementation of gear. Essentially nonexistent on mobile.

* Their postprocessing of routes for estimations are always way off

* I commute every day via bike, and track it on strava. I tag is as "Commute", and I expect that strava would do something to filter it so my friends don't see all those every day. They don't do anything with that extra metadata.

Hell, even Lance Armstrong abandon ship

~~~
kingosticks
The commute tag is totally bizarre. It's been there for ages and doesn't do
the only thing it needs to do. I do not get what they are up to.

------
tb303
Strava has been a hobby business since day one. It used to be a spreadsheet,
and they made it into a web app. Neither of the founders are involved in the
day to day anymore. The lead product designer responsible for ~2010 to 2016,
Alex Mather, also left to do his own thing.

I had been one of their biggest fans for years and had an offer from them on
the table in 2010. I turned it down for many reasons, the greatest of which
was that they viewed Garmin as a partner and not a competitor, and lacked the
hunger to dominate. Here we are in 2019 and it shows, with confusing pricing
plans (pay for privacy?) and users paying to advertise for free with limited
edition strava cycling kits etc.

I still use it because a) there is no better way to find great running routes
than following strong runners in my area and b) i enjoy celebrating the
successes of my friends when i log my data. But I agree that it has fallen so
far and lacks a vision now.

Sorry to any strava folks reading this. It's not personal. But I imagine none
of this would surprise you.

------
piquadrat
What's ironic in this whole situation is that Strava themselves are extremely
dependent on a 3rd party API: workouts from Garmin. I don't think there are
public numbers on the percentage of total workout data comes from Garmin, but
looking at their own status page gives an idea:
[https://status.strava.com/](https://status.strava.com/)

The graphs for "Uploads" and "Uploads from Garmin Connect" are virtually
identical. Seeing that, I'd be surprised if Garmin was contributing less than
75% of total uploads.

If I was invested in Strava, I'd be somewhat concerned right now that Garmin
could pull a Relive on Strava...

~~~
bagacrap
I think Garmin reasonably sees Strava as a boon to their business. Before it
came out, most cyclists had simple odometer style bike computers rather than
gps devices. GPS computers existed but there wasn't much you could do with the
data. Strava should likewise see that services like Relive only increase
customer satisfaction and engagement with Strava, especially given that Strava
doesn't have the technical wherewithal to add new features, like, ever (my
personal suspicion is that all engineers are constantly in a performance code
red, trying to get hosting costs down).

~~~
wolco
Garmin sells hardware and Strava is at best a brand. 3rd parties could replace
strava.

~~~
jhrmnn
Social lock-in.

------
nradov
Strava stopped innovating years ago and hasn't introduced any useful new
features. Although I seldom use Relive, this user hostile move finally
convinced me to cancel my paid Summit membership. It's my data, I should be
able to use it for whatever I want.

Strava has been promising support for triathlons and other multi-sport
activities literally for _years_ but hasn't actually built anything. Right now
if you compete in a triathlon it shows up as five separate disconnected
activities. And the swim portion can't even be tagged as a race.

Segment leader boards have also become a joke with nothing to prevent cheating
or accidental bad data uploads. They claim to have a feature that
automatically flags bad activities but it doesn't work at all. It would be
trivial to auto-flag activities faster than the world record but they don't
even bother to do that. It seems like their engineering organization is just
completely incompetent.

~~~
davidw
I kind of get the feeling they're a bit stale too.

Their app has not been working real well on my Android phone lately.

The only reason I have the 'pro' version is the "safety" feature that lets my
wife know where I am, approximately.

Anyone got a good alternative for that?

Thinking of getting a Wahoo Elemnt Bolt... real time location update could
integrate with that too.

~~~
bootlooped
If you're on Android (maybe even if you're not?) you can use Google Maps to
share your location with specific people for a specified time, or
indefinitely.

~~~
davidw
It's pretty useful to have this tied to the actual ride; otherwise you're
bound to forget it and leave it on, or off.

Also, you want some velocity information and/or history, so that someone can
see that you've stopped moving and for how long.

~~~
sorenjan
Check out Glympse.

------
ThirdPartyApi
Using a throwaway account to not get ourselves cut off too..

I run a website in a different industry but the danger of being cut off from
the api feeds we need to provide our product is a threat we fear every day. We
work hard to comply with all regulations but this often means these other much
larger companies can whenever they decide to change their minds force us to
change things on our website else cut us off completely.

I guess it's the nature of the business when you build something as an
extension to something else and do it so well that you become a threat, but
still I feel for Relive. We're basically building and market testing a product
for free for the "parent" company and if it does too good it's really in their
best interest to kill the little guy off and make it their own sadly much of
the time. :(

Edit: We can also confirm "ghosting" is a real thing. Typically the larger
companies refuse to have conversations with us because they know they're being
a bully and a human connection will make them feel bad.

~~~
hnarn
So why use a third party API in the first place? For something like Strava,
what makes their API so much better than say, OpenStreetMap (or any similar
free dataset) that anything else would be unusable?

And if no free dataset exists, why not create one? Rally the competition and
the community for a free dataset that benefits everyone, and sell the product
on top of it.

~~~
matharmin
Because it's not a public dataset, it's the specific user's data that only
lives in Strava (or one of the other platforms that they integrate with).

~~~
ThirdPartyApi
Correct. I guess without giving more detail I can understand how my username
or original post can be confusing. But I'm representing companies that use api
feeds from larger companies to build products on top of them like Relive did,
not using a third party api such as a map in our product if that make sense.

~~~
OJFord
That's always a dangerous game though surely, you know from the outset that
the API provider might come out with a first-party solutiom and all but kill
your, what is essentially a, plugin.

~~~
toyg
The objective is typically to make it complex and advanced enough that it
becomes difficult for the provider to reimplement it from scratch, or build
features that the provider will probably never implement. See for example how
Spotlight on macOS has not killed Alfred and probably never will, because
Alfred can be very liberal with things like running scripts and plugins -
whereas Apple cannot.

------
ptmcc
Strava has been stagnating for years at this point. I used to really love
their site, and I've still been a pretty active user, but I can't even
remember the last time they introduced a meaningful new feature or
improvement.

And their paid subscription offers me, a non-racer, basically nothing. I
checked it out once before, but cancelled after realizing there's no substance
to it for a casual/enthusiast.

And now this recent dispute with Relive just indicates that they misunderstand
their place as a platform. If they want to start acting like Oracle and be a
bully rather than an innovator, then good riddance to them.

There is nothing special about Strava except inertia at this point. There are
MANY competing services and platforms, and perhaps it is time for me to
consider switching.

~~~
learnfromstory
Strava is the only social network from which I derive any real value. I don't
need them to constantly mutate the product.

~~~
sorenjan
They could at least improve it.

The graphs are tiny and noisy, there's no reason they can't use my whole
screen and offer a filtered version.

The segments are made of poor GPS data from a single activity, and the
leaderboards are filled with unrealistic times that could easily be filtered
out automatically.

The maps are old and lack data that's been in OSM for years.

The heatmap combines MTB and road bikes, so when planning a ride you don't
know if you're looking at tarmac or a single track filled with roots and
rocks.

There's no support for multi sports like swimrun or triathlon.

No support for interval training.

On multiple occasions the Android app has stopped logging, even when the GPS
has worked fine in other apps running concurrently.

The three top voted feature requests on their community discussion board are
all 7 years old, number four is 6 years, then there's a couple more from 7
years ago.

[https://support.strava.com/hc/en-
us/community/topics/2005373...](https://support.strava.com/hc/en-
us/community/topics/200537377-New-Feature-Ideas?sort_by=votes)

And so on. It's fine not changing what works, but there are lots of room for
improvement but nothing happens. If they had a single engineer working on new
features or fixing broken existing ones they would have released improvements
several times per year. When was the last time they did that?

~~~
ptmcc
Exactly!

I'm not saying that Strava needs to constantly reinvent itself and add
groundbreaking new features and changes -- I'd prefer they don't! But there
have been the same long list of bugs, quirks, and limitations for literally
years. Plus the same handful of most-desired features by the community have
gone largely unimplemented and ignored.

In addition to your list, I primarily use a Garmin device, but I do
occasionally use the mobile and watch apps and they have some pretty huge
limitations for seemingly no reason. Like why are there so few activity types
that I can record on my Apple Watch? I can manually reclassify them later in
the web app, but why do I have to do that?

And why is the mobile app lacking in features like equipment tracking,
something pretty basic that has existed on the web app for years?

Also the Apple Watch app has corrupted multiple activities that simply refuse
to upload (rejected by Strava's servers), and Strava Support has told me
"tough, there's nothing we can do or look into". They don't even pretend to
care or ask for details to investigate.

It's one thing to have a stable, mature product with great support but Strava
has not proven to really be any of those things over time. They've built up a
decent social network of athletes and enthusiasts, but the tech & product side
has completely stagnated.

~~~
sorenjan
Around here it seems like runners use various different activity trackers, but
among cyclist Strava is the de facto standard. If you meet another cyclist you
can be pretty sure you'll find them later on Strava flyby (a neat feature,
I'll have to give them that). It's mindblowing how they seem to squander such
a huge market lead in what I assume is a pretty affluent market.

Besides improving their product they could easily add more monetization paths,
like offering users to buy new equipment from affiliates, working together
with race organizers and accommodation facilities, and there's probably other
things as well. Instead they go into hibernation and do the old "more or less
useless features behind a premium membership" business plan.

------
roland35
This is just another example of how frustrating it is to try and keep track of
workout data! I personally have tried Nike+, Google Fit, now I have Fitbit...
it is hard to keep track of all of this!

Companies try to keep users locked into their ecosystem but the companies come
and go!

~~~
Ididntdothis
I am really starting to hate all the cloud stuff. Wherever you put your data
there is a very good chance you will lose that in a few years. For my hikes I
now store GPX files locally and I will do that with FiT files too.

~~~
siddharthdeswal
Agreed, most "cloud" software slowly try to lock you in, only to lose it in a
few years when they get sold, or shut shop, or don't get the next round of
funding.

It's a pain, and I now wish we just have internet connected hard drives where
we can save whatever we want.

~~~
Ididntdothis
“internet connected hard drives where we can save whatever we want.”

That’s how it should be. You have your data under your control and give
companies access which you then can revoke whenever you wish.

------
crisnoble
Interesting to see everyone hating on strava for not changing much for a long
time. It has thousands of apps and browser extensions built on top of it to
give you power features you want or need for training purposes. Strava is not
probably not going to "steal relive's feature", although they have had
something similar for years
[https://labs.strava.com/flyby/](https://labs.strava.com/flyby/). If you want
something actually cool for unique routes use
[http://www.loopieroute.com/](http://www.loopieroute.com/). AFAIK, Strava cut
Relive off because they were unclear about showing data within privacy zones
and because relive is trying to build a competing social network.

1 Year ago:

* Signed up to relive with my strava account

* Started getting a lot of spam from relive that they made a video for my commute twice a day.

* Couldn't find any settings to stop making videos after every single ride, filtered out their emails, marked as read.

2 days ago:

* Received 3 Emails from Relive that "[friend from strava] wants to be my relive friend".

* Remembered that I never could figure out how to turn off relive syncing, signed in, found a way to delete my account

1 day ago:

* Get email from strava saying relive has been banned

Today:

* HN users decide to make a better alternative in their free time because strava sux

Keep in mind that if you as a user want to keep using relive you still easily
can, just upload your gpx files. If you want it to automatically make videos
you can setup a zapier/iftt/many many more ways to pull your data after every
activity and pipe it to another service. Strava is not user hostile, it is
friendly to 3rd parties, offers an amazing api, allows you to pay them money
instead of being the product. What more does HN want?

~~~
d0100
> What more does HN want?

Ease of use? Convenience? Perhaps fairness?

People seem to have an inmate strong reaction to apparent unfairness and
hipocrasy

------
hiei
First time I've learned of Relive and it's really too bad - this looks like a
fun integration to use alongside Strava. I was already thinking of how I could
have used this with my dad and us share rides from states apart. Watch Strava
copy Relive features in next 6 mo.

~~~
nraynaud
It’s just fun for a few weeks and then the novelty wears off. In particular if
you train all the time around the same places.

~~~
davidw
Looks like it'd be fun for big rides in more unusual locales.

It'd look cool for this ride I bet:

[https://www.strava.com/activities/1636893894](https://www.strava.com/activities/1636893894)

~~~
crisnoble
And you still export the gpx and upload it to relive. Relive constantly making
these videos after every single ride was annoying to me, I would much rather
make 1 or 2 a year, but it was all or nothing with strava syncing.

------
vorpalhex
Those who can't innovate litigate.

~~~
kreetx
Yeah. Funny how the actual "work hard with Relive to solve the issue" is
actually ghosting - working hard to ignore I guess. (If the Relive account of
the events is to be trusted)

------
tschellenbach
Think the solution here for Relive is to raise more money and go right after
Strava's core market. Strava doesn't really give them many other options at
this point...

------
Accacin
Simply amazing, I asked their support if they would consider reversing their
decision and stating that I dislike that they claim to own my data.

They replied back with a generic response pointing to their update, so I
replied with a request for my account to be deleted and have advised my
friends and family to do the same.

------
floatingatoll
Strava’s critical error is allowing users to sign up and sync devices and
providers for free.

They should charge $1/month for each synced device beyond the first and for
each connected third-party tool including the first, and offer monthly data
exports for free. That way they get paid for maintaining your data
connections, they only charge average users $0/mo, people using them as an
M-device, N-way sync provider pay a reasonable fee of $M+N/mo for the hard
work required to upkeep that, and if you just want to backup your data you can
export it every month at no charge.

As a bonus, this would let them split the third-party linking fee 50/50 with
each third party, so that the ecosystem can grow in a healthy and funded
manner rather than decaying from refusal to charge - while still prioritizing
their own on-site solutions for those who are satisfied with them.

------
clickrepeat
Relive are completely dominating the social media game. Complete silence from
Strava vs this
[https://twitter.com/relivecc/status/1149260549231915010](https://twitter.com/relivecc/status/1149260549231915010)

------
awillen
Reminds me of Twitter back in the day, with their terrible and inconsistent
developer policies. It took them quite a while to recover from the impact
those had, despite the fact that they're an enormous platform that can provide
a ton of value to developers. Strava's not close to Twitter's level of
utility/value, so if they keep this up it's tough to see how they'll ever
maintain a developer ecosystem.

------
binarymax
This is just a fantastic example of how one-sided APIs and TOSs are for the
platform providing the data. Anyone paying for data should have a contractual
agreement that prevents termination and protects IP. There is nothing stopping
Strava from seeing what API integrators build, then shutting them down and
copying them.

------
justaguyhere
If someone made a desktop version of relive, will the situation be different?
Like, I am running the software on my computer, downloading my data and making
videos (or whatever else) with it - instead of relive's servers.

~~~
giobox
Given relive is presumably just parsing a list of GPS coordinates that
originated in the GPX file from a Garmin or similar bicycle head unit, you can
absolutely do the same thing locally using just the original GPX file from the
rider. DC Rainmaker's linked article alludes to this too, in his big section
on this being the rider's own personal data, not Strava's, precisely because
the data is originally from the GPX and not Strava themselves.

Virtually all the data to build Relive's video comes from the device recording
the GPX track, Strava's API was just a convenient way to get them rather than
have the user upload their GPX track a second time.

Losing Strava integration is still a big deal though, as so many people use
the service. Any time I've ever seen someone share a relive video it's always
originated from their Strava ride log.

Oh and if into the intersection between technology and
running/cycling/swimming, DC Rainmaker is a great read. I've been reading his
site for a long time, his advice and reviews are incredibly detailed.

(Other gps logging formats than GPX exist and are supported by strava, but
given the popularity of Garmin head units among cyclists it’s likely the most
common format)

------
Cyclone_
A little ridiculous considering Strava basically wouldn't exist were it not
for companies like Garmin and polar for which it depends on for user data via
APIs.

------
_the_inflator
Strava API wars reminds me of the early Twitter API ecosystem "wars".

We might see a Strava feature similar to the Relive app coincidentally in the
near future...

~~~
chihuahua
Adding useful features seems to be against Strava's core principles, so it
seems unlikely that this will happen anytime soon, based on Strava's track
record over the past 5 years

------
NikolaeVarius
Are there any actually privacy respecting fitness apps? All I really want to
do is map my runs on a map with a timer.

------
pedalpete
Relive aren't the only ones in this game. We at
[https://ayvri.com](https://ayvri.com) create interactive 3d videos, and you
can connect your Strava account.

Unlike most in this thread, I believe the argument from Strava is valid.
Relive built their brand, app, and community of users on top of Strava, they
now are usurping those users and have re-created a complete app ecosystem
which mimics much of what Strava already provide.

In my personal opinion, the world doesn't need another fitness tracking app or
community. There are so many out there already. What we, and to a lesser
degree Relive, provide can be so much more.

Though we look like a sports tracking app, because that is a large volume of
our usage, we also have business in commercial drone operations, wild life
research, city planning and more.

I'm from Whistler, Canada, so I love outdoor sports, but that doesn't mean
that every feature should become a fitness tracking app.

~~~
outericky
Most peoples data doesn't originate from Strava, right? At least not anyone I
know (runners, MTB'ers, cyclists, triathletes). Nearly every single one I know
uses a Garmin, Suunto, Polar or Wahoo device. Maybe a couple use a phone, but
even then I don't think they record with Strava. Heck even my retired parents
have a Garmin first...

Relive works with (at least) Garmin, so that's how I sync to it first, then I
sync to Strava... so for me, and many many others, Strava is just a 3rd party
app to Garmin. Garmin could play the strong hand and cut off Strava's access
to the API and they'd suffer quite a bit too.

Disclosure: Strava member since 2011, Premium/Summit member since 2013. But,
after 6 years of paying, this is turning me off. I won't be renewing Summit at
the next renewal (especially since there haven't really been many useful
features added over free)

~~~
kiksy
Anecdotally, myself and nearly all my friends just use Strava phone app to
record the rides. For me the benefits of using an external device are
essentially zero, battery used to be an issue on long rides but even this now
seems to have been solved by the app.

------
chrisweekly
Strava has done this before. Citation needed, but I recall switching from
Strava to a competitor (Runkeeper?) some years ago as minor protest.

------
steve_gh
Ghosting. hmmm.

I can see an Streisand effect coming on here...

~~~
tomashertus
TIL that a "Streisand effect" is a real thing. For everyone who wonders as I
did:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect)

------
asdf333
ultimately it boils down to strava didn't like it so they found reasons to
shut them down. it doesn't matter how bad the reasons are. this is how bully
companies operate and it will not change unless users demand the right to
control data they generate and push for laws to unlock their data from private
silos.

------
didibus
Why wouldn't they just charge for API use?

~~~
toyg
They are themselves dependent on third-parties to ship data to them. Almost
nobody uses Strava to log activities, they just sync up from Garmin and
friends.

------
33MHz-i486
pretty clickbaity outrage in the article. It's user's data but Strava isn't
obligated to serve an API to anyone. We already learned from the early FB era,
the insane data privacy implications of having liberal APIs for personal data.
Also if it wasn't completely obvious to Relive its not wise to build a product
or business off of someone else's uncompensated API, especially when the
entity you're piggybacking on depends on user engagement for its revenue.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _It 's user's data but Strava isn't obligated to serve an API to anyone._

Arguably, it should be. Siloing data and controlling API access is the
cornerstone of user-abusive business model.

~~~
33MHz-i486
HIPAA is siloed and controlled API access, is that user-abusive?

~~~
AlotOfReading
HIPAA requires providers to give you access to your data. Not perfect, but
hardly a silo.

~~~
33MHz-i486
and you can't download your data from strava?
[https://support.strava.com/hc/en-
us/articles/216918437-Expor...](https://support.strava.com/hc/en-
us/articles/216918437-Exporting-your-Data-and-Bulk-
Export?mobile_site=true#Bulk)

------
Haul4ss
> But the problem is those workout files are actually your data.

I'm a long-time fan of DC Rainmaker, but here he is just wrong. Once you put
that data into Strava, it's not yours anymore.

This is the fundamental conflict with all of these services: your data doesn't
belong to you, it belongs to them.

You can argue all day that it shouldn't be that way, but Strava pays to host
the data, to store it in perpetuity, to (theoretically) keep it secure, and to
enable API integrations that cost bandwidth. And you don't pay for it. Not
with cash money anyway. You pay by surrendering your right to use your data as
you see fit.

Edit for my downvoters: I agree that this state of affairs is messed up. I'm
just noting the reality of how these services operate.

~~~
clickrepeat
You’re forgetting that most of Strava data comes from Garmin or similar
devices.

Strava can’t pretend to be a hub and then claim they own the data. Hoping
Garmin, Wahoo and others who actually produce this data clamp down on Strava
too.

~~~
Haul4ss
And Garmin is welcome to create an API to host your data and integrate with
other services. Uploaded Garmin data isn't originated by Strava, but since
they're hosting it they are setting the terms.

I am a former Strava user, emphasis on former. If they enforce terms of
service that are unfriendly to their users, those users are free to leave. The
lock-in is just not that strong.

