Originally Posted by robertorolfo

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).




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.



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.