Interestingly, most people aren't talking about the Strava story as an example of the dysfunctional start-up and venture capital economy that currently prevails.
Early days? Make your service free to build a customer base. Profitability doesn't matter, as VC money will keep you going and make you feel like kings of the world. Eventually, however, you do have to start making money (or stop hemorrhaging it), and that's where the problems start. Chief among them, copycat competitors that are still in the early stages and can beat you on price because they aren't worried about profitability yet and have different VC money behind them. And so the cycle repeats, on and on and on...
If you are lucky, you become a big name and get some blown up valuation before things fall apart (see WeWork). If not, you just fade into obscurity (see Friendster).
Originally Posted by
Leinster
The Strava guys addressed that in their statement, I think. They said that they've tried ads in the feed and product promotions, and got pushback from users each time. You have to give tehm credit for maintaining such an ad-free social media platform in this day and age; compared to my Bookface or instagram feeds the lack of people trying to sell me stuff is quite refreshing on Strava.
Well, if they clearly communicated the alternative (watch ads or pay, your choice), that might have been different. And while they might not have had ads, there was still some nonsense like messages promoting premium or some new feature, that were basically like ads anyway (just a block of space to ignore).
Also, not all ads are created equal, at least in my eyes. I honestly don't mind ads from Campagnolo, Sidi, Fizik, Daccordi, or any bike related product. Sometimes it's actually nice to see an ad showing you a new product.
Originally Posted by
noisebeam
It doesn't take long to flag them. You get 20 flags per day, use them if appropriate.
Strava should have a three strikes and you are out policy for cheaters. I find I often flag the same few characters that are obviously cheating.
It's not at all worth the time and effort considering how many there are here. The obvious ones with ridiculous speeds are easy, but then there are the e-bike people that are harder to suss out without taking a closer look at their ride. Some of them actually put "e-bike" or something similar int the title (one guy actually included the number of the bus route he was taking, although I still have no idea why you would record a bus ride on Strava), but it's simply not worth the time or the effort.