Strava: API access only with paid subscription in the future
Retrieving data from Strava via the API in the future will need paid subscription. The fitness service justifies this with the actions of the AI industry.
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The fitness service Strava is closing free API access, even completely cutting off some endpoints, and justifies the move with the reckless way AI companies collect training data. An entry in the support forum states that AI companies are not only "aggressively" scraping data themselves. They also provide tools with which apps are created that then hammer API access. Together, this has worsened the performance of their own services for everyone, which is why, after careful consideration, changes must be implemented. These were immediately criticized. The fitness service, which recently announced an IPO, assures that users can continue to access their own data free of charge – just not via API.
Comparisons to Reddit
With standard access for a monthly fee of 12 US dollars, it will be possible to retrieve data for 10 accounts in the future; no verification is necessary. Verification is only required if you want to retrieve more data for an application. An "Extended Access Tier" is required for access to data from more than 10,000 users. Strava does not provide prices on the associated page. Standard tier developers without an active Strava subscription will lose API access from June 30th, Strava announces. Several endpoints will also be closed by September, the use of which does not justify the operation. Further details can be found in the statement and an FAQ. For users with a subscription, Strava is introducing a new MCP server (Model Context Protocol) via which their own data can be analyzed using an AI assistant.
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According to Strava, more than 240,000 developers who currently use the API are affected by the changes. The company assures that they feel deeply committed to them. At least some do not see it that way, and criticism of the move is being collected on Reddit, for example. It is pointed out there that the social news aggregator itself provoked its community with a similar step. However, Strava CEO Michael Martin rejected the comparison to Techcrunch, pointing out that they do not charge for API access based on the number of requests, but rather start with a fixed sum. This allows an idea to be tried out first before having to pay more for broader access.
(mho)
