After a few years of having a paid subscription, I have reverted to the free option - main reason is that I am getting old and no longer able make use of the additional features of paid model. On returning to the free model, it seems to have lost so much that was there a few years ago. 1) I cannot load up past similar runs so I now have to create my own spreadsheet. 2) I look at the group for my running club and can only see the top three for each category. I am certain I used to be able to see all 80 to 100 runners in the group. There is no point in just looking at the elite athletes and not being able to see your peers.
Also, Strava now seems extremely slow to load but I don’t think this is down to switching to free model as I am sure it was becoming slow with the subscription model (and I am comparing it to other apps on the same computer, same broadband).
I am seriously considering abandoning Strava and finding an alternative.
Has usefulness of free subscription been throttled?
I surprised no one has replied to this post yet, but yes, the free subscription has been EXTREMELY throttled. I used to use the free platform between 2017 to 2019 with most of the key features available to me, fast forward to 2025 and now i have to pay to get the same features from Strava. Everything has been moved behind a paywall.
Saddening that the scope of free features has diminished over time. Year after year it seems free users lose features...worst part is that Strava is already collecting and storing our data, it’s all right there ready to be viewed, but we can’t unless we pay.
I’ve had issues with the website slow loading even though I have a paid account. In my case, it seems to be a browser issue, as it’s troublesome in Safari but not Firefox. I’ve also had trouble with Safari on one Mac not working as well as Safari on another.
I don’t encounter the club leaderboard display limit. I have a second, free Strava account and when I use it to look at a club that my paid account is a member of, I see all 62 people who were active the past week.
That said, I know there are features that have been moved behind the paywall. For example, back when I only had a free account, Strava would show my past history for, e.g., skating around Central Park. That was made a premium feature around 5 years ago, IIRC. There are a couple other things I noted recently that had also been paywalled but at the moment I don’t recall what. Also, since my primary activity is not one of Strava’s “big two”, there are a lot of stat features that I don’t get anyway.
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