Strava V Relive

What’s happened?

Early in July, users of Strava and Relive received emails from the services announcing they had broken up. Relive would no longer be able to access Strava users data.

Strava

Many of us at Strava have enjoyed using Relive over the last few years, but because of Relive’s recent updates, unfortunately we have decided to end this integration. The current version of Relive violates several of the terms that we ask of API partners. These terms are in place to safeguard your personal information, to ensure a level playing field for all our partners, and to protect what makes Strava unique. We’ve worked hard with Relive to try to fix this, but they have ultimately chosen not to make the changes needed to honor their agreement. So as of today, Strava will no longer send your activities to Relive for playback.
Rest assured, nothing’s changed about how your information is stored or the control you have over how it’s accessed by API partners. And we remain deeply committed to helping our many API partners build experiences that make your workouts and races even better. 
As always, thanks for being a part of the Strava community, 
The Strava Team

Strava Support, July 8th 2019
https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/articles/360030429332-An-update-on-our-integration-with-Relive

‘The Strava Team’ sent out the above statement stating that due to recent updates on the Relive platform (presumably the new social media additions) they broke the rules of Strava’s API.

The API is a set of rules that allow a third party, such as Relive, to securely and legitimately access the data held in the Strava database.

They stated that, while Strava have tried to work with Relive to fix the problem, the Relive team had chosen not to make the changes needed.

In a further statement, Strava said;

“We have strict standards for how our API partners utilise our member data. We deeply respect the trust of our member community and expect our partners to do the same.

“Relive’s current use of Strava member data violates our API agreement and we have ended its integration with Strava. We are disappointed that Relive was unwilling to make the changes necessary to comply with the agreement.”  

Relive

Strava broke up with Relive 💔
 
So, this sucks… Strava decided to no longer work with us. After launching our first social features, we received a very unexpected message threatening to pull the plug.

We then tried to call, email, and talk this out with Strava. No response. It’s sad to see them suddenly go, and we’re bummed about this.

Nothing has changed about how Relive uses and protects your data, or how we use their API. We believe this is your data, and you should decide how it’s used. After all, it’s your legs doing all the work!

Email from Relive 11/07/2019

The Relieve team state that, after adding social features to their platform, Strava unexpectedly contacted them threatening to disable their access to the Strava API.

Relieve go on to say “Given our long-term partnership, we immediately rolled back the changes like they requested. We then tried to call, email, and talk this out with Strava. No response, except for new ultimatums and threats about our existing features they’ve applauded for years.“

The full Relieve statement is here https://www.relive.cc/strava?hl=en

So what do we think really happened?

Obviously the two accounts given out by each side are contradictory. Each side blaming the other for not cooperating, but there are some clues as to what may have actually happened to cause this split.

In June this year, James Quarles, the CEO of Strava, held a media event discussing the future of the Strava platform.

They have 42 million accounts, and they are looking to expand on that, they want to own the social fitness market.

Strava will start targeting non-GPS sports like yoga and fitness machines, and along with that they are looking to add more social tools to the platform.

We think Strava plays a role for people not just when they’re recording an activity but before and after, right?

You can find routes, you can find groups to join, people to go with. Then, once you post the activity, you can talk about it, post photos, tag friends, and memorialize and relive the event.

Strava wants to be the home of your active life, Strava wants to be the dashboard for tracking your fitness, a calendar for inviting friends to work out, a feed for you to follow others’ activities, a blog for your race reports and photos, and a message board to ask for recommendations on a new pair of trail-running shoes. In the process, Strava’s goal is to cement itself as “the next great sports brand of the 21st century,”

James Quarles, Strava CEO
https://www.outsideonline.com/2395489/strava-james-quarles

It’s likely that Strava are planning on rolling out more of their own social tools, making the platform much more ‘Facebook like’ and they saw the features on Relive as a threat to their own, it may even be that Strava is planning on rolling out it’s own Relive-type mapping features.

It certainly looks like Strava was using the size of its user base to try to control what and how other services operate to protect its own interests.

But why the change? Strava has a massive user base and it’s investors are more than likely looking to turn that base into a revenue stream, so expect more ‘premium features’ more advertising and more use of your data.

So did Relive break the Strava API rules? probably, but not in any malicious or dangerous way (and probably not in any way that a host of other, smaller, Strava connected apps have)

Did Strava try to cripple Relive? again, probably. If they see Relive as a threat it makes sense to nip them in the bud at the earliest opportunity.

Other Fitness Apps

Why is everyone on Strava? well they’re not, or at least not ‘just’ on Strava. It became a meeting place for users of other disconnected apps to sync their data to and compare and compete. The use of Strava segments pushed the platform forward, but it lacked so many niche features other platforms offered.

So if you’re looking to move your data away from Strava, what are the options?

Under Armour has acquired several apps that can work together or as stand alone apps, MyFitnessPal, Endomondo and MapMyFitness. The suite of apps has about three times as many users as Strava, with more finessed tools and less emphasis on social ‘chit chat’

ASICS own Runkeeper, one of the first fitness apps. It’s got 50 million users and is well established in the elite fitness area.

Garmin Connect has a user base about the same size as Strava, but is just for users of Garmin fitness products.

GoogleFit, Apple Health, MSN Fitness, Fitbit and Samsung Health are all well connected alternatives, allowing you to share your fitness data to to other platforms.

There’s a great review of some of these apps here https://www.pcmag.com/article/334976/the-best-fitness-apps-for-2019