Strava Puts Popular 'Year In Sport' Recap Behind an $80 Paywall

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Earlier this month, Strava, the popular fitness-tracking app, released its annual 'Year in Sport' wrap-up -- a cutesy, animated series of graphics summarizing each user's athletic achievements. But this year, for the first time, Strava made this feature available only to users with subscriptions ($80 per year), rather than making it free to everyone, as it had been historically since the review's debut in 2016. This decision has roiled numerous Strava users, particularly those who have relished the app's social encouragement features.

One Strava user in India, Shobhit Srivastava, 'begged' Strava to 'let the plebs see their Year in Sport too, please.' He later explained to Ars that having this little animated video is more than just a collection of raw numbers. 'When someone makes a video of you and your achievements and tells you that these are the people who stood right behind you, motivated you, cheered for you -- that feeling is of great significance to me!' he said by email. 'Our goal was to give our users ample notice before the personalized Year In Sport was released,' said Strava spokesperson Chris Morris. 'With the relaunch of our subscription this year, we wanted to clarify the core benefits of Strava -- uploading activities, finding your community, sharing and giving kudos -- remain as accessible as possible.'

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