Strava’s predatory pivot to subscription is old news. I still think we should be ranting about it, but old news nevertheless. What isn’t clear, at least to me, is how this impacts Packs subscribers. As a legacy Packs subscriber, I’ve received several emails from Strava indicating something. What exactly? I’m not sure. I click the link which is supposed to explain it all, and just end up on a page which tells me that Strava needs cash, and would I like to start my 60-day trial. Maybe I’m obtuse, or maybe Strava thinks that simply repeating its new mantra will align my thinking to theirs.
At the heart of the issue is that I paid for some Pack combo that added up to $24. I don’t remember exactly which Pack, because every feature besides Live Segments is useless. OK, maybe that’s a bit harsh. It’s probably fairer to say something like “I looked at it once, thought “that’s kinda neat”, then never glanced over again” because frankly, while Strava was fiddling an ecosystem of specialized applications (some even using Strava data) that did all those things better grew up around it. I digress.
Back to Packs. I paid for a year of Live Segments + a bunch of rubbish, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect that Strava provides me a year of Live Segments + a bunch of rubbish. You know, ’cause I paid for it, for a year. What happens after that year? Dunno yet. So far, Strava hasn’t updated My Account to ah, account, for the focus on a $60/year plan profitability. And I’m not going to touch anything in the vain hope that their development team is too busy adding all the features that will make subscribing to Strava sensible to figure out how to update that $23.99 to $60. I can say for sure, with you all as my witness, that come December 6, 2020 if my subscription doesn’t auto-cancel or I get charged some amount of money greater than $23.99 for Live Segments + a bunch of rubbish, there will be hell to pay. Fortunately, the power of screenshots will make a pretty compelling case for a credit card chargeback.
Although, with all that said, it kind of surprises me that Strava can’t find someone in their pool of 180 employees to actually write up some documentation around how Packs subscribers will transition to Profitability-Plan Subscribers.
