Strava is for many cyclists the central place where they keep their entire cycling history. Every ride, often accompanied by nice photos, is stored in the databases of this popular app for athletes. Is that really wise? And who actually owns all that data?
Strava started in 2009 in San Francisco as a small app but quickly grew into one of the largest sports apps in the various app stores. By now, the app has more than fifty million users and enormous amounts of activities are recorded in it. The number runs into the billions, from bike rides and running sessions to skating and rowing kilometers, and that not only produces a huge stream of data but also a very valuable company. It is estimated that Strava is now worth more than one and a half billion dollars. The company earns its money not only from subscriptions, but also by selling your data in anonymized form and through partnerships with brands that advertise.
You would expect such a valuable company to have a large department of smart communication specialists, but nothing could be further from the truth. Last year they already fumbled quite a bit when they drastically increased prices. They just didn’t do that everywhere in the same way, but with different prices in different countries, and it also regularly happened that comparable users were shown a different subscription price. An apology and a fix could have solved that quickly, but Strava chose to fully defend that strange policy. Besides a lot of ridicule, it also earned them many angry users. Apparently they learned little from it, because last month Strava startled the entire cycling community with an unexpected press release in which all third-party app developers were told that within thirty days they were basically no longer allowed to do anything with the data they retrieve from Strava via an API.
API?
A short lesson on APIs for beginners. Strava offers third parties a kind of software connection through which they can retrieve ride data from Strava into their own app. This happens via an Application Programming Interface, abbreviated as API. Your bike computer also uses such an API to send your data to Strava after your ride.
With that API, Veloviewer can, for example, create a nice yearly overview of all your rides. Join can retrieve your training data and check whether you completed the training correctly before generating a new one. And a fun app like Sauce for Strava shows how many pizza slices or beers you burned during your ride.
The changes to the rules by Strava are not only frustrating for those third-party app developers, but also for all users who actually enjoy using these extra apps. They are called third party because you are the first party and Strava the second.
The changes come down to this:
- Other apps may only show your Strava activities to yourself: no more leaderboards or KOM lists on Veloviewer or Wandrer.
- Third-party apps may not use AI to further process or analyze the data.
- Third-party apps may not “look like Strava” in terms of appearance.
In practice
When the changes to Strava’s terms and conditions were just announced, there were fears that thousands of useful apps would disappear. Many users immediately canceled their premium Strava subscription and complained heavily on various online platforms. Strava was quite alarmed and quickly came with a clarification, stating that it would not be that bad and that the new rules were mainly introduced because they care so much about user privacy. In the meantime, the storm has somewhat calmed down and many, especially larger, app developers seem to find ways to keep using the data and continue to exist, possibly by adapting their own apps.
Near-monopolist
It is of course very impressive that Strava has managed to bind all those brands to itself over the years, but it now also shows how dangerous such a “near monopoly” is. Many users and app providers have become dependent on Strava. Logical, because it is very convenient to automatically send all your data from your bike computer or smartwatch to one place and then see all kinds of things happen with it in many other apps.
All data that you as a user upload to Strava belongs to you—you remain the owner of it. There is therefore a lot of criticism about Strava’s new measures, with the argument that the end user should decide who they want to share their data with. And that is true. But Strava ultimately owns the API through which that data flows and they determine the rules. If you don’t like that, there is only one solution: leave Strava and figure out how to get your data into those other apps. That means you would have to create and maintain a separate connection for every additional app you use, which is neither fun nor convenient.
Opportunities for competitors
What Strava’s exact goal is remains somewhat unclear. Of course, it bothers Strava that many apps take the data provided via the API and apparently do something better with it than Strava itself can. But the suppliers of that data—you and your fellow cyclists—are not helped by this at all. Strava mainly hides behind the privacy argument, but we think they also want users to use their platform for more than just a pipeline for data transfer.
Judging by the reactions, they miscalculated. Larger apps now see a great opportunity to bind users directly to their own platforms. They point out the risks of Strava dependency and offer new ways to connect with their software. About eighty percent of bike computer users have a Garmin or Wahoo. Both already had their own API that allows you to send ride data to their own platforms. Smaller players like Sigma, Hammerhead, and Lezyne also offer this functionality. Garmin, for example, will not be unhappy with Strava’s decision. With its Connect platform, it already offers a place to centrally store your data, analyze training, and create and save routes. And third-party apps are still very welcome to connect.
And now?
Ultimately, end users prefer a central hub, like Strava is (or was), where they can store all their data. If users were to massively switch to Garmin, you would essentially fall into the same trap of full dependence on a single provider. So for now, it’s mainly a matter of waiting to see how things develop. Maybe it’s time for an independent “storage app” that focuses on the best API and, for a small annual fee, ensures that everyone is happy to connect without adding unnecessary features. Until then, we’ll just keep muddling along.
How to make a backup
We are curious what all this will mean for the number of paying Strava members. If you are also wondering whether you still need or want to use Strava, at least make a backup of all the data Strava has on you. You can request a backup file on your account page (strava.com/account).
At the bottom of that page, you’ll find “Download or delete your account.” If you click on it, you’ll get the option to create a backup file. It takes some time to generate, and you’ll receive an email when it’s ready. That file contains not only all your ride data, but also all the photos and videos you have ever uploaded to Strava.
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