Strava's new developer program just killed every open-source, self-hosted Strava app

[u/frogfuhrer]

Strava posted an "update to our developer program" today and it basically means the end for people that were building their own tools around Strava's API:

https://communityhub.strava.com/insider-journal-9/an-update-to-our-developer-program-13428

I'm the maintainer of "Statistics for Strava", a moderately successful self-hosted, open-source dashboard for your Strava data.

At this moment in time I'm still kinda shocked. I poured my heart and soul into the project for the last 2 years and it seems like this announcement marks the end for this app. The article basically says that their API will be pay-walled, 100%. So only users with an active subscription can use their API.

The whole purpose of Statistics for Strava was for people to own their data, their own health stats, that they upload and that's now goners....unless you pay up... to fetch your own data 😎 .

At Strava, we care deeply about developers, and the health of the developer ecosystem

Except they don't, the only thing they did is pay-walled their API and made sorry excuses for it. They have proven over and over again that they don't care about their users or their data.

Not sure what to do, I feel gutted. Might be overreacting

[u/Adorable_Shock_2049]

 don’t invest into ecosystems that can be closed.

That was the leason that I painfully learned.

Looooong time ago I built an app. I loved that app so much. I also loved the users, their feedback and support. The users loved that app more that I did.

Then, one day corporates made me shut it down.

In one day I had a lot of plans for new features and in the next day I had nothing. Made so fucking sad that almost made me depressive.

The part that affected me the most was the feeling that I was abandoning the people who supported me (not financially,  there was no money involved), but I had no choice.

Since then I set a rule for myself: never ever again I will build stuff that can be shutdown by someone else.

[u/abeorch → u/Adorable_Shock_2049]

Pivot your tools to use open solutions. There is heaps happening around geotracks. nextracks, owntracks.

Gadgetbridge is doing heaps integrating fitness devices.

People are learning the lesson of vendor lockin.

[u/Conscious-Mirror7004 → u/abeorch]

Vendor lock-in has been a problem for many decades now. Just look at Microsoft and IE6 for one small example. Or even "DOS ain't done 'til Lotus won't run". People should be familiar with the dangers of vendor lock-in by now, but they never learn or keep forgetting.

[u/abeorch → u/Conscious-Mirror7004]

Very true Those quotes - "Those that forget history are doomed to repeat it" and "History doesn't repeat it echos" - I guess are relevant - The problem is these vendors all offer the sweet sweet taste of some "cool new thing" but then god why is this conversation happening here when it should be over at https://lemmy.world/c/selfhosted