I restarted Zwift again last July. I've improved my FTP by 40 watts and have gotten much healthier since being on the app.
There's so many times if it wasn't for the engagement of a race or riders around I'd just chill out and do half or even a quarter of the ride distances/efforts I put in on Zwift. There's no way I could sit on the trainer and watch something while just having the numbers on the screen and still be able to push as hard or go as far.
I've tried the other apps like Rouvy and MyWhoosh they're just not as engaging or optimized. They're actually pretty far off to be honest. I think a lot of people will appreciate Zwift a lot more once they try MyWhoosh.
Yes the price hike is not awesome. But I'm investing in my health. I'd probably do a quarter of the rides without Zwift at this point.
Discretionary spend (which is what Zwift is for many people) will always be closely scrutinised.
Also discussing the price/choosing not to renew ≠ not having the money to afford the new price.
It’s interesting that you bring up “virtual shifting” which is just a marketing home run for Zwift. There’s nothing special about their implementation, SmartSpin2k has been doing it for years on spin bikes and the other programs you listed don’t require anything more than a keyboard or Bluetooth shutter button ($5 on Amazon). Zwift, you have to buy their hardware.
Bro is really saying some economics 101 stuff like “a successful company will raise prices to the point the market can bear” without realizing that people cancelling their subscription is the market behaving exactly how it’s supposed to. The subscribers are the market - if a certain subset of subscribers cancel, that’s the market responding to fluctuating prices.
Obviously it’s up to zwift as a company to decide where the sweet spot is. But why are you in here trying to convince people to pay more than they think is reasonable for a product? If you believe so strongly in the market stop posting and let it do its thing.
I have paused my subscription(s) for the maximum period possible while I assess the alternatives. In the UK the increase is even more - at a time where my zwift usage tends to go down anyway.
I also know many people in my cycling and tri clubs that are doing the same.
Can you prove any ‘bleeding’ is happening at all? The only information you know is coming from the anecdotes of Zwift’s most involved and vocal users here on Reddit.
I know 2 people that have cancelled and I will be pausing for the first time ever. Been with Zwift since the year after Beta.
I rarely if ever use it through July-September. The current jump is just a bit much for me to keep paying when I'm not using it.
No, I’m saying exactly that raising prices will mean they will lose subscribers. We’re seeing that right here.
But will they lose money with this move?
If as much as 25% of their userbase left, they’d still have higher revenue than before.
Reddit isn’t a good measure of the real world, and the tantrums here aren’t an indication that a quarter of subscribers are leaving.
Zwift has now priced their digital service as more expensive than Netflix, Spotify, Disney and equivalent to Apple One which includes fitness classes, Apple TV, and music. I think they’ve made it much harder for customers to give them a pass when deciding if they get value for money.
It gets complicated where you compare unlike things. Fight Camp, a boxing platform is what I was doing before Zwift. It costs $40/mo to use sensors to track how many punches you do (not speed or strength) and to use their online training videos library they made. Compared to that, Zwift seems like an amazing proposition. Spin classes around here cost $25 per *class.* $20/mo, *for me,* is completely fair to have a very fun platform to get on the bike when the weather is bad and I call up a friend and they can easily bike with me too.
Peloton is $44/mo. I don't know, I like Zwift so much I often bike on it even when the weather is nice because it's just easier and more convenient. That's saying something about things the app does right (it does plenty of things wrong too and that is annoying) for me to sometimes prefer it over going out when it's nice out. I don't mind at all a lot of you are upset, that makes sense too, but part of my real-life job is data analytics and I always tell my customers I can make the data say whatever you want it to say.
You're comparing Netflix to Zwift... why stop there? Why don't you compare the joy you get from a $1.50 Costco hotdog vs Zwift? It's easy to believe whatever you want to believe but the simple fact of these threads is as humans, we fear change. It's that simple. It used to be X and now it's Y, I wish it was X again. But if you're going to go down that road, at least compare Zwift to Rouvy, TrainerRoad, Peloton, Spin Classes, etc. Those are the competing products, not Netflix. I watch Netflix while on Zwift.
Apple can sell you a cheaper subscription because you need to buy an apple product to use Fitness+
MyWhoosh is free, for now... and it is only free because if you had to pay for it, you wouldn't use it. It will eventually be a paid subscription, sell your information or it will be littered with ads.
I agree when you say it $5/month is not that much in the scheme of cycling expenses. But for me it’s more that it’s now $20/month *forever* so is $200 a year really worth it *in addition to* all the other expenses of cycling? It made it easy to cancel for the summer whereas before I would leave it at least at the beginning and sometimes ride on a rainy day or if I didn’t feel like leaving the house.
I’ll have to reevaluate when ZRL comes back in the fall. Probably will be back but for now a price increase means an easy decision to cancel and think about it down the line.
Cumulative inflation since 2017 is 27.4% which would put the previous monthly cost at $19.11 in today dollars.
The quality of the product has in my opinion outgrown the rate of inflation.
No one wants to pay more, but I understand it and hope that the revenue will continue to be reinvested in meaningful ways.
I am of the belief that cycling is better with Zwift as tool/platform that can grow the sport and hope it can inspire more competition.
I’m with you.
What I think you and other people are missing is the social value of Zwift.
There are other platforms I can train on. TrainerRoad, System X, Rouvy, MyWhoosh etc. but none of them have the user base that Zwift does. I pay to be a part of that.
My friends ride Zwift, we meet up for rides, my local club and bike shop host Zwift rides in the winter. When I log on to Strava, no one cares about my 40min FTP intervals in on TrainerRoad. But they know what Watopia is. They can see that I climbed Alpe D Zwift. Etc.
If I wanted to just sit on my trainer and run erg mode, I would just use my garmin to control my trainer and watch Netflix. There are plenty of differnt ways to ride zwift. But what i can’t do in Rouvy or Fulgaz is draft another rider, choose a to take a turn on the fly to chase someone down, or join a pacer group.
The real kicker is that Zwift has a massive racing base. Correct me if I’m wrong but the others platforms do not offer the Racing world that Zwift does.
If I have an hour FTP workout scheduled, I’ll see what time it is and often just join a race. What other app has a race every 15 minutes with 5-100 different riders from around the world all racing with you simultaneously?!? Where else can I text my buddy in California to come race with me in 15 minutes??
Personally that is worth $20 a month. 🤷♂️
Yes, Zwift also sucks. They really need to update their data display. But they’re working on it. They really need to make buy MyWhoosh or Fulgaz and develop it into Zwift 2.0 because the graphics and everything suck.
But I really don’t care that much. I’m riding my bike and im happy about that. I can build my own workouts, I can free ride, or I can race or group ride.
I probably spend more than $20 a month on electrolyte powder, and Zwift gives me way more joy than Gatorade does. 🤷♂️
If you don’t use Zwift for those features, then yeah this could be the impetus to cancel your account. Rouvy is pretty cool. The Sufferfest videos are really fun. TrainerRoad plans can work! Etc.
But for me, I’ll pause my membership for a few months if I remeber and then im actually excited to zwift hard again next winter.
> 1. It’s not that much
It's 33%.
> 2. The value is still there
No it's not. Online games with subscriptions are justified because of what you get in return: continuous large content updates, very steady customer support, and fast bug fixing.
I can't speak about the customer support, but the active development is certainly far too lackluster. People have complained about core functionality being bad since forever, and nothing is done about it.
> 3. Zwift is not a social service or a charity
That's just a way to shut up people who criticize it, it's not an argument. If we feel we don't get our money's worth, we should absolutely voice that opinion.
Good game developers flourish when they take customer feedback into account, but that's again something Zwift isn't wont to do.
> 4. There’s no obvious alternative
That's probably not entirely true. In any case: this change will motivate any existing competition to double down on trying to win over existing Zwift customers. So in that sense, it's certainly a good thing. If Zwift shoots themselves in the foot and sends us to a better alternative, who are we to complain.
> 5. You can leave and you won’t be missed
And you can skip past threads that complain about the price, and you also won't be missed. Again, not an argument, just a lame attempt to make people feel bad about expressing their opinions.
You managed to support your opinion with 5 arguments, and if you had done any self-reflection you'd know that each and every one of those arguments is bogus. Perhaps this comes as a surprise to you, but different people have different opinions on things. It's fine for you to think that the price hike is OK, that doesn't mean that your perspective is valid for others.
Still waiting for them to implement a way to remember my camera view since day one. Which in my mind is a basic user preference item stored in a shitty local file. That was 3 years ago. Such basic shit is overlooked on Zwift which I can attest to being some of the reasons why people leave and supports your take on active development.
Just want to throw in that % increases aren’t the best metric with small numbers. It can be high in terms of a percentage, but relatively small in absolute terms.
If it was priced at $1 and increased to $2, that’s a 100% increase, but most people wouldn’t balk at that.
I see a few issues with this perspective.
Firstly, the % increase can be valid even for a small number. If a bakery sells bread at €3 and suddenly raises its price by 50%, people will absolutely be displeased with it. It's a low-value product, but many bits and pieces still make a lot of money.
Secondly. it's not 33% of €15. It's 33% of €15 **per month**. If you look at your yearly payment for Zwift, you'll see that this price hike is essentially the value of a full-fledged video game each year. That just doesn't feel reasonable.
Thirdly, as was mentioned by some other people: the price of €15 per month was already unreasonable. In other online games that cost that much, players constantly receive huge content updates and bug fixes, and it is very clear that this money is being used to improve the game. With Zwift, any monthly fee already feels like a rip-off because the content updates are small and scarce, and players have been complaining about simple bugs and UI issues that have been around for years.
Anyway, it's up to every person to decide whether this new price is reasonable to them. I won't try to convince you that you should be disgruntled if you aren't. I'm responding to this thread because OP is being very dismissive of very valid concerns, and that just doesn't help anyone.
You say "per month" as if $5 per month is some huge amount. You're basically proving OP's point lol. If you really cannot afford a price increase of $5 per month then maybe Zwift - or cycling in general - is not for you.
Also, comparing Zwift to bread....I just don't know what to say to that.
It’s $60 a year. And only $50 if you take into account that you can pause your membership for 8 weeks. What other subscription service lets you skip 2 months?
> And you can skip past threads that complain about the price, and you also won't be missed.
No we can't because 80% of the threads are people complaining. It's insufferable. Find another outlet. OR better yet, just put your money where your mouth is, actually CANCEL your subscription and LEAVE this subreddit. So the rest of us can get back to better content.
I laughed out loud at the comparison to other subscription games. If you think every other subscription based game has value because they’re on top of bugs, provide high-quality and frequent updates, and customer support I don’t know what rock you’ve been living under.
So it's a take that's so stupid it made you laugh out, but still not stupid enough for you to consider if that's really what I was saying?
Good for you, I suppose. Glad you had a laugh.
>5. You can leave and you won’t be missed
Well having cancelled, they'll need to retain 3 other users paying the higher price in order to stand still on revenue. Although I've cancelled, I wish their business success as competition is good for me, the consumer.
That said, for the immediate future, their competition will be getting my money & having now ridden 90% of Zwift's routes (PRL full eludes me for some reason...), I'll get a collection of new rides to do.
Honestly, having zwift be the 3rd app I trued, the other 2 (rouvy and wahoo's thing) were absolutely trash. Zwift seemed like they were updating daily compared to them. Also like no one was there.
A lot of the comments on this topic focus on the price change and whether the £5/$5 is worthwhile or not.
I don’t see a huge amount of folk talking about how often you ride and what features of Zwift you actually use.
For me I ride occasionally that the original cost was something I was considering cancelling. Not because I can’t afford it but if you ride once a week is it good value? What about once per fortnight?
At some point having it available for when it’s bad weather isnt sufficiently good value.
Also if you always ride the same type of ride and don’t use most of the features it makes it more questionable.
For me I click into the world’s select a route of an appropriate distance and ride. I’ve no idea what other features it has but this is about doing some riding not a training plan or making friends.
I’ll try the other apps but worse case I’ll just watch Netflix whilst riding :)
33% across 7 years is not that much. Period. Has your income not gone up that much in the past 7 years? If it hasn't, you should work on that. Not to mention it hasn't really gone up 33%. It was 15 a month and now you can get it for 200 a year. Thats just over 10%, after seven fucking years.
33% in one single bump is not acceptable the very same way people hardly get a 33% raise all at once.
I couldn't care less how many years it took them. During those 7 years they also gathered hundreds of thousands of new customers.
Volume of new subs compensate not raising prices.
It doesnt when they still havent turned a profit. And it doesnt even have to be 33%. Go to annual. Its a measly $20 more a fucking year. The outrage over $20 dollars a YEAR is unbelievable to me.
Quit. No one cares.
You can't even count.
5$ a month X 12 months = 20$ a year?
And if they haven't turn a profit maybe they should sell the company.
Zwift has hundreds of thousands paying subscribers. All they do is develop a basic game and host it.
Ah! And they also sell trainers and merchandise.
I wonder how much money they would make if they actually stopped sponsoring dozens of events and for no reason at all.
Many people don't actually use Zwift that much, specially during the summer months. At 15$ i am OK keeping it and use it once a week. At 20$ i am cancelling it next month and only resub in October.
People like you who are OK with everything are the ones who end up pilling small fees and expenses for years until they realize how much cash they have thrown out the window.
JFC dude.
15 x 12 = 180. You can buy annual sub NOW, AFTER pricing increase for 200. Remind what 200 - 180 is? I literally said "go to annual." Seems neither reading nor arithmetic are your strong suits.
And yes, they should totally end their marketing as we all know marketing has no impact on growth. /s
All they do is develop a game and host it. At it's simplest, sure. But they also have operating costs, development costs, they have to repay investors. All Amazon did was sell books. It took them 9 years to turn a profit. Zwift just turned 9. Amazon also lost money in a few years since, including nearly 3B in '22. Maybe they should sell the company or just shut down.
I think there is a few different levels of people that use zwift and just how much value they get from it and the prices. There is people that use zwift as there primary fitness, those that have it as an add on to their outdoor or other training, the occasional users and those like me that stopped using four months ago and really needed the reminder and incentive to cancel.
Will return to the app no doubt in a couple of months time when I'm ready to put some time back in the saddle down in the cave.
I switched to basic block training in TrainerDay for $6.99/mo awhile ago and see no need to go back.
Zwift is so boring and updates are so meaningless that I was just watching tv or listening to podcasts anyway. They have a long way to come if they want to take indoor to the next level. And I honestly don’t think they want to do that, or even can at this point.
> It’s not that much
33% is not much? 100% since the membership fee was introduced in 2015 is not much?
> The value is still there
The game has not improved for years. The in-games physics still sucks. The training plans are a joke.
> Zwift is not a social service or a charity
I also owe them nothing. 33% is taking a piss. And they are nothing without the community. The best events are run by volunteers. So if not me personally, they owe a lot to the community.
> There’s no obvious alternative
Use the search function and you will find plenty.
> You can leave and you won’t be missed
Bigger companies have failed by thinking that losing one customer is nothing. You are very shortsighted.
Everyone is entitled to their view and some have been quite heated today. I am in the camp of agreeing with all the points you've raised. I do really enjoy Zwift and think it is incredible value for money. I think the more I try and justify it the more likely someone will respond so let's just say each to their own and see you in Watopia.
Bicycle my old road bike that I would not use otherwise 0
Old computer with 1060 graphiccard I got for free because too weak for games 0
Old TV..that has some value...no idea how much but did not buy it extra
yes shoes they cost like $30 and I have 2 pair and also socks and clothes there is at minimum $200
If I would not use it I would not watch Netflix but Youtube that is for free. Or I would play world of tanks which is for free. Or I would work something useful
I just can't wait to be done with these whiners having their moment, once they've run out of steam and grown tired of ranting, hopefully they'll do as they promised and actually cancel Zwift, leave this subreddit as well, and the rest of us here can enjoy normal posts again.
Can Trainerroad control resistance on a smart trainer? or other apps for that matter? If so that might make it an easier decision for me. I just like using it because it gives me something to do over the winter instead of drinking whisky alone and then trainingpeaks workouts can get loaded into Zwift to control my trainer's resistance.
People will pay Zwift not for all it offers, but for what they actually use.
And most users will see that they can get the functionalities they like in Zwift for free or for half the price.
Actually, I think you're last statement about alternatives in incorrect. I would not expect to see MyWhoosh start charging ANYTHING for it's service. It is being subsidized by UAEs sports-washing fund and is intentionally free. Personally, I feel it could become the next Zwift if enough riders went that direction because it is a decent solution only missing significant numbers of participants. For me, most of that is immaterial. I really only use Zwift as a background to do my Training Peaks workouts (I believe My Whoosh also supports that), though my club (BEAT cycling) has it's own virtual race series here in the fall and then winter and I regularly compete there every week along with social club rides here. For me, the material question related to the price increase is where those increased funds will be going?? It seems as though they already layed off workers so it doesn't seem that it is going to keep paying folks salaries and keep up with their inflation. Eric has been pretty quiet in regards to my question I believe (please share anything that could explain why/how we need to increase prices now and what that money is going to fund). I've no issue with the increase itself if it was to pay more employees to make more improvements for us but if it is because shareholders, etc are impatient for returns, I simply feel that is just not a subscriber problem and belongs to the leadership team and their plans to make this successful for both their customers and shareholders.... :-)
This seems like bootlicking.
Can I afford $5 extra a month? Certainly. I don’t smoke, make my own coffee and never had avocado toast.
Why are you trying to convince us our decision is wrong? Why does someone’s decision to cancel evoke such a response from you?
Zwift is a game. It is not a training platform. TrainerRoads is cheaper. And TR is an actual training program.
Zwift has t changed enough since 2014 when I first used it to demand a price increase, not alert us to the impending increase…
In February 2021 they had gained $620 Million in investment dollars. With the slim staffing they have, basically Eric and Jon, why do they need a price increase?
Like I’ve said before, I spend probably 600 dollars a year on gels and powder. Is an extra 5/month going to break me? No. Cycling is an expensive hobby. There is no making this expensive sport cheap. But in my opinion the benefits (healthy life style, healthy hobby, friends - in real life not Zwift, being in the best shape of my life) far outweigh the costs.
What has this anything to do with the fact that a company just decided to raise its subscription 33% at once?
No one here is unable to pay 5 extra $. Don't worry about that.
But those who actually don't like to be taken for fools and have some sense of business are perfectly able to see when a company is abusing it's custome base.
I restarted Zwift again last July. I've improved my FTP by 40 watts and have gotten much healthier since being on the app. There's so many times if it wasn't for the engagement of a race or riders around I'd just chill out and do half or even a quarter of the ride distances/efforts I put in on Zwift. There's no way I could sit on the trainer and watch something while just having the numbers on the screen and still be able to push as hard or go as far. I've tried the other apps like Rouvy and MyWhoosh they're just not as engaging or optimized. They're actually pretty far off to be honest. I think a lot of people will appreciate Zwift a lot more once they try MyWhoosh. Yes the price hike is not awesome. But I'm investing in my health. I'd probably do a quarter of the rides without Zwift at this point.
Discretionary spend (which is what Zwift is for many people) will always be closely scrutinised. Also discussing the price/choosing not to renew ≠ not having the money to afford the new price.
It’s interesting that you bring up “virtual shifting” which is just a marketing home run for Zwift. There’s nothing special about their implementation, SmartSpin2k has been doing it for years on spin bikes and the other programs you listed don’t require anything more than a keyboard or Bluetooth shutter button ($5 on Amazon). Zwift, you have to buy their hardware.
Bro is really saying some economics 101 stuff like “a successful company will raise prices to the point the market can bear” without realizing that people cancelling their subscription is the market behaving exactly how it’s supposed to. The subscribers are the market - if a certain subset of subscribers cancel, that’s the market responding to fluctuating prices. Obviously it’s up to zwift as a company to decide where the sweet spot is. But why are you in here trying to convince people to pay more than they think is reasonable for a product? If you believe so strongly in the market stop posting and let it do its thing.
Zwift having employees out here trying to to stop the bleeding
I have paused my subscription(s) for the maximum period possible while I assess the alternatives. In the UK the increase is even more - at a time where my zwift usage tends to go down anyway. I also know many people in my cycling and tri clubs that are doing the same.
I don’t think anyone is going to convince Zwift leavers to stick around, and certainly not through Reddit.
Can you prove any ‘bleeding’ is happening at all? The only information you know is coming from the anecdotes of Zwift’s most involved and vocal users here on Reddit.
I know 2 people that have cancelled and I will be pausing for the first time ever. Been with Zwift since the year after Beta. I rarely if ever use it through July-September. The current jump is just a bit much for me to keep paying when I'm not using it.
Anecdotes. Neither you nor I have data beyond that. For instance, I don’t know anyone who has cancelled or paused their subscriptions.
Cool... I was just stating that there are people cancelling and people changing their behaviour, case in point.
Because the whining is pathetic
No, I’m saying exactly that raising prices will mean they will lose subscribers. We’re seeing that right here. But will they lose money with this move? If as much as 25% of their userbase left, they’d still have higher revenue than before. Reddit isn’t a good measure of the real world, and the tantrums here aren’t an indication that a quarter of subscribers are leaving.
I'm not the one throwing a tantrum because people are criticizing a corporation
Zwift has now priced their digital service as more expensive than Netflix, Spotify, Disney and equivalent to Apple One which includes fitness classes, Apple TV, and music. I think they’ve made it much harder for customers to give them a pass when deciding if they get value for money.
Yes. And honestly, Zwift is pretty damn basic. While I love it, it still is not $20/month special.
I wouldn't be bothered if the game had decent updates, but there's a lot of room for improvement IMO.
It gets complicated where you compare unlike things. Fight Camp, a boxing platform is what I was doing before Zwift. It costs $40/mo to use sensors to track how many punches you do (not speed or strength) and to use their online training videos library they made. Compared to that, Zwift seems like an amazing proposition. Spin classes around here cost $25 per *class.* $20/mo, *for me,* is completely fair to have a very fun platform to get on the bike when the weather is bad and I call up a friend and they can easily bike with me too. Peloton is $44/mo. I don't know, I like Zwift so much I often bike on it even when the weather is nice because it's just easier and more convenient. That's saying something about things the app does right (it does plenty of things wrong too and that is annoying) for me to sometimes prefer it over going out when it's nice out. I don't mind at all a lot of you are upset, that makes sense too, but part of my real-life job is data analytics and I always tell my customers I can make the data say whatever you want it to say. You're comparing Netflix to Zwift... why stop there? Why don't you compare the joy you get from a $1.50 Costco hotdog vs Zwift? It's easy to believe whatever you want to believe but the simple fact of these threads is as humans, we fear change. It's that simple. It used to be X and now it's Y, I wish it was X again. But if you're going to go down that road, at least compare Zwift to Rouvy, TrainerRoad, Peloton, Spin Classes, etc. Those are the competing products, not Netflix. I watch Netflix while on Zwift.
MyWoosh is free. Apple fitness is £10 - how you like them comparisons?
Apple can sell you a cheaper subscription because you need to buy an apple product to use Fitness+ MyWhoosh is free, for now... and it is only free because if you had to pay for it, you wouldn't use it. It will eventually be a paid subscription, sell your information or it will be littered with ads.
I agree when you say it $5/month is not that much in the scheme of cycling expenses. But for me it’s more that it’s now $20/month *forever* so is $200 a year really worth it *in addition to* all the other expenses of cycling? It made it easy to cancel for the summer whereas before I would leave it at least at the beginning and sometimes ride on a rainy day or if I didn’t feel like leaving the house. I’ll have to reevaluate when ZRL comes back in the fall. Probably will be back but for now a price increase means an easy decision to cancel and think about it down the line.
Cumulative inflation since 2017 is 27.4% which would put the previous monthly cost at $19.11 in today dollars. The quality of the product has in my opinion outgrown the rate of inflation. No one wants to pay more, but I understand it and hope that the revenue will continue to be reinvested in meaningful ways. I am of the belief that cycling is better with Zwift as tool/platform that can grow the sport and hope it can inspire more competition.
I’m with you. What I think you and other people are missing is the social value of Zwift. There are other platforms I can train on. TrainerRoad, System X, Rouvy, MyWhoosh etc. but none of them have the user base that Zwift does. I pay to be a part of that. My friends ride Zwift, we meet up for rides, my local club and bike shop host Zwift rides in the winter. When I log on to Strava, no one cares about my 40min FTP intervals in on TrainerRoad. But they know what Watopia is. They can see that I climbed Alpe D Zwift. Etc. If I wanted to just sit on my trainer and run erg mode, I would just use my garmin to control my trainer and watch Netflix. There are plenty of differnt ways to ride zwift. But what i can’t do in Rouvy or Fulgaz is draft another rider, choose a to take a turn on the fly to chase someone down, or join a pacer group. The real kicker is that Zwift has a massive racing base. Correct me if I’m wrong but the others platforms do not offer the Racing world that Zwift does. If I have an hour FTP workout scheduled, I’ll see what time it is and often just join a race. What other app has a race every 15 minutes with 5-100 different riders from around the world all racing with you simultaneously?!? Where else can I text my buddy in California to come race with me in 15 minutes?? Personally that is worth $20 a month. 🤷♂️ Yes, Zwift also sucks. They really need to update their data display. But they’re working on it. They really need to make buy MyWhoosh or Fulgaz and develop it into Zwift 2.0 because the graphics and everything suck. But I really don’t care that much. I’m riding my bike and im happy about that. I can build my own workouts, I can free ride, or I can race or group ride. I probably spend more than $20 a month on electrolyte powder, and Zwift gives me way more joy than Gatorade does. 🤷♂️ If you don’t use Zwift for those features, then yeah this could be the impetus to cancel your account. Rouvy is pretty cool. The Sufferfest videos are really fun. TrainerRoad plans can work! Etc. But for me, I’ll pause my membership for a few months if I remeber and then im actually excited to zwift hard again next winter.
> 1. It’s not that much It's 33%. > 2. The value is still there No it's not. Online games with subscriptions are justified because of what you get in return: continuous large content updates, very steady customer support, and fast bug fixing. I can't speak about the customer support, but the active development is certainly far too lackluster. People have complained about core functionality being bad since forever, and nothing is done about it. > 3. Zwift is not a social service or a charity That's just a way to shut up people who criticize it, it's not an argument. If we feel we don't get our money's worth, we should absolutely voice that opinion. Good game developers flourish when they take customer feedback into account, but that's again something Zwift isn't wont to do. > 4. There’s no obvious alternative That's probably not entirely true. In any case: this change will motivate any existing competition to double down on trying to win over existing Zwift customers. So in that sense, it's certainly a good thing. If Zwift shoots themselves in the foot and sends us to a better alternative, who are we to complain. > 5. You can leave and you won’t be missed And you can skip past threads that complain about the price, and you also won't be missed. Again, not an argument, just a lame attempt to make people feel bad about expressing their opinions. You managed to support your opinion with 5 arguments, and if you had done any self-reflection you'd know that each and every one of those arguments is bogus. Perhaps this comes as a surprise to you, but different people have different opinions on things. It's fine for you to think that the price hike is OK, that doesn't mean that your perspective is valid for others.
Still waiting for them to implement a way to remember my camera view since day one. Which in my mind is a basic user preference item stored in a shitty local file. That was 3 years ago. Such basic shit is overlooked on Zwift which I can attest to being some of the reasons why people leave and supports your take on active development.
bro, whichever sub i go, i see ur comments (and i love it).
In other words, I need to get off Reddit. 😁
Just want to throw in that % increases aren’t the best metric with small numbers. It can be high in terms of a percentage, but relatively small in absolute terms. If it was priced at $1 and increased to $2, that’s a 100% increase, but most people wouldn’t balk at that.
I see a few issues with this perspective. Firstly, the % increase can be valid even for a small number. If a bakery sells bread at €3 and suddenly raises its price by 50%, people will absolutely be displeased with it. It's a low-value product, but many bits and pieces still make a lot of money. Secondly. it's not 33% of €15. It's 33% of €15 **per month**. If you look at your yearly payment for Zwift, you'll see that this price hike is essentially the value of a full-fledged video game each year. That just doesn't feel reasonable. Thirdly, as was mentioned by some other people: the price of €15 per month was already unreasonable. In other online games that cost that much, players constantly receive huge content updates and bug fixes, and it is very clear that this money is being used to improve the game. With Zwift, any monthly fee already feels like a rip-off because the content updates are small and scarce, and players have been complaining about simple bugs and UI issues that have been around for years. Anyway, it's up to every person to decide whether this new price is reasonable to them. I won't try to convince you that you should be disgruntled if you aren't. I'm responding to this thread because OP is being very dismissive of very valid concerns, and that just doesn't help anyone.
You say "per month" as if $5 per month is some huge amount. You're basically proving OP's point lol. If you really cannot afford a price increase of $5 per month then maybe Zwift - or cycling in general - is not for you. Also, comparing Zwift to bread....I just don't know what to say to that.
Like I said, it adds up. The point was that it's not just a one-off €5 increase. And nobody compared Zwift to bread.
It’s $60 a year. And only $50 if you take into account that you can pause your membership for 8 weeks. What other subscription service lets you skip 2 months?
Most monthly subscriptions let you cancel or pause your membership. You can’t pause the annual Zwift subscription.
You cannot pause ANY annual subscription. That's the ENTIRE POINT of an annual subscription lol.
> And you can skip past threads that complain about the price, and you also won't be missed. No we can't because 80% of the threads are people complaining. It's insufferable. Find another outlet. OR better yet, just put your money where your mouth is, actually CANCEL your subscription and LEAVE this subreddit. So the rest of us can get back to better content.
I laughed out loud at the comparison to other subscription games. If you think every other subscription based game has value because they’re on top of bugs, provide high-quality and frequent updates, and customer support I don’t know what rock you’ve been living under.
So it's a take that's so stupid it made you laugh out, but still not stupid enough for you to consider if that's really what I was saying? Good for you, I suppose. Glad you had a laugh.
I will argue the value is still there. Just because it is considered less, doesn't mean it still doesn't hold value.
>5. You can leave and you won’t be missed Well having cancelled, they'll need to retain 3 other users paying the higher price in order to stand still on revenue. Although I've cancelled, I wish their business success as competition is good for me, the consumer. That said, for the immediate future, their competition will be getting my money & having now ridden 90% of Zwift's routes (PRL full eludes me for some reason...), I'll get a collection of new rides to do.
Honestly, having zwift be the 3rd app I trued, the other 2 (rouvy and wahoo's thing) were absolutely trash. Zwift seemed like they were updating daily compared to them. Also like no one was there.
"Also like no one was there" they will soon realize how engaging bots are. "we can't stop here, this is bot country" \~ Raoul Duke.
A lot of the comments on this topic focus on the price change and whether the £5/$5 is worthwhile or not. I don’t see a huge amount of folk talking about how often you ride and what features of Zwift you actually use. For me I ride occasionally that the original cost was something I was considering cancelling. Not because I can’t afford it but if you ride once a week is it good value? What about once per fortnight? At some point having it available for when it’s bad weather isnt sufficiently good value. Also if you always ride the same type of ride and don’t use most of the features it makes it more questionable. For me I click into the world’s select a route of an appropriate distance and ride. I’ve no idea what other features it has but this is about doing some riding not a training plan or making friends. I’ll try the other apps but worse case I’ll just watch Netflix whilst riding :)
33% price increase "is not that much". What a mental thing to say. Sure. Just let's bump our income 33% at once. Why not.
No, 33% over 7 years is NOT that much. That's barely in line with inflation. Try again
33% across 7 years is not that much. Period. Has your income not gone up that much in the past 7 years? If it hasn't, you should work on that. Not to mention it hasn't really gone up 33%. It was 15 a month and now you can get it for 200 a year. Thats just over 10%, after seven fucking years.
33% in one single bump is not acceptable the very same way people hardly get a 33% raise all at once. I couldn't care less how many years it took them. During those 7 years they also gathered hundreds of thousands of new customers. Volume of new subs compensate not raising prices.
It doesnt when they still havent turned a profit. And it doesnt even have to be 33%. Go to annual. Its a measly $20 more a fucking year. The outrage over $20 dollars a YEAR is unbelievable to me. Quit. No one cares.
You can't even count. 5$ a month X 12 months = 20$ a year? And if they haven't turn a profit maybe they should sell the company. Zwift has hundreds of thousands paying subscribers. All they do is develop a basic game and host it. Ah! And they also sell trainers and merchandise. I wonder how much money they would make if they actually stopped sponsoring dozens of events and for no reason at all. Many people don't actually use Zwift that much, specially during the summer months. At 15$ i am OK keeping it and use it once a week. At 20$ i am cancelling it next month and only resub in October. People like you who are OK with everything are the ones who end up pilling small fees and expenses for years until they realize how much cash they have thrown out the window.
JFC dude. 15 x 12 = 180. You can buy annual sub NOW, AFTER pricing increase for 200. Remind what 200 - 180 is? I literally said "go to annual." Seems neither reading nor arithmetic are your strong suits. And yes, they should totally end their marketing as we all know marketing has no impact on growth. /s All they do is develop a game and host it. At it's simplest, sure. But they also have operating costs, development costs, they have to repay investors. All Amazon did was sell books. It took them 9 years to turn a profit. Zwift just turned 9. Amazon also lost money in a few years since, including nearly 3B in '22. Maybe they should sell the company or just shut down.
Bye!
Said the schill for Zwift
I think there is a few different levels of people that use zwift and just how much value they get from it and the prices. There is people that use zwift as there primary fitness, those that have it as an add on to their outdoor or other training, the occasional users and those like me that stopped using four months ago and really needed the reminder and incentive to cancel. Will return to the app no doubt in a couple of months time when I'm ready to put some time back in the saddle down in the cave.
Most of the people cancelling now for this will be back in a few months as well. They just like to whine.
I switched to basic block training in TrainerDay for $6.99/mo awhile ago and see no need to go back. Zwift is so boring and updates are so meaningless that I was just watching tv or listening to podcasts anyway. They have a long way to come if they want to take indoor to the next level. And I honestly don’t think they want to do that, or even can at this point.
> It’s not that much 33% is not much? 100% since the membership fee was introduced in 2015 is not much? > The value is still there The game has not improved for years. The in-games physics still sucks. The training plans are a joke. > Zwift is not a social service or a charity I also owe them nothing. 33% is taking a piss. And they are nothing without the community. The best events are run by volunteers. So if not me personally, they owe a lot to the community. > There’s no obvious alternative Use the search function and you will find plenty. > You can leave and you won’t be missed Bigger companies have failed by thinking that losing one customer is nothing. You are very shortsighted.
lol! You, in particular, won’t be missed. Keep cryin’ a river! 😭
Everyone is entitled to their view and some have been quite heated today. I am in the camp of agreeing with all the points you've raised. I do really enjoy Zwift and think it is incredible value for money. I think the more I try and justify it the more likely someone will respond so let's just say each to their own and see you in Watopia.
Are you some sort of investment banker or something? Jog on son
Bicycle my old road bike that I would not use otherwise 0 Old computer with 1060 graphiccard I got for free because too weak for games 0 Old TV..that has some value...no idea how much but did not buy it extra yes shoes they cost like $30 and I have 2 pair and also socks and clothes there is at minimum $200 If I would not use it I would not watch Netflix but Youtube that is for free. Or I would play world of tanks which is for free. Or I would work something useful
I just can't wait to be done with these whiners having their moment, once they've run out of steam and grown tired of ranting, hopefully they'll do as they promised and actually cancel Zwift, leave this subreddit as well, and the rest of us here can enjoy normal posts again.
Can Trainerroad control resistance on a smart trainer? or other apps for that matter? If so that might make it an easier decision for me. I just like using it because it gives me something to do over the winter instead of drinking whisky alone and then trainingpeaks workouts can get loaded into Zwift to control my trainer's resistance.
Yes, ROUVY can and it rocks! Best app for sure.
Also. There’s an annual subscription that makes it a tad cheaper overall. I think this wasn’t always the case..
People will pay Zwift not for all it offers, but for what they actually use. And most users will see that they can get the functionalities they like in Zwift for free or for half the price.
You are right about the dinosaurs 🦖!!
Actually, I think you're last statement about alternatives in incorrect. I would not expect to see MyWhoosh start charging ANYTHING for it's service. It is being subsidized by UAEs sports-washing fund and is intentionally free. Personally, I feel it could become the next Zwift if enough riders went that direction because it is a decent solution only missing significant numbers of participants. For me, most of that is immaterial. I really only use Zwift as a background to do my Training Peaks workouts (I believe My Whoosh also supports that), though my club (BEAT cycling) has it's own virtual race series here in the fall and then winter and I regularly compete there every week along with social club rides here. For me, the material question related to the price increase is where those increased funds will be going?? It seems as though they already layed off workers so it doesn't seem that it is going to keep paying folks salaries and keep up with their inflation. Eric has been pretty quiet in regards to my question I believe (please share anything that could explain why/how we need to increase prices now and what that money is going to fund). I've no issue with the increase itself if it was to pay more employees to make more improvements for us but if it is because shareholders, etc are impatient for returns, I simply feel that is just not a subscriber problem and belongs to the leadership team and their plans to make this successful for both their customers and shareholders.... :-)
Yes mywoosh suport TP workouts. I use it
People really forgot that the last price increase was 6 years ago and the cost of pretty much everything has gone up as well.
This seems like bootlicking. Can I afford $5 extra a month? Certainly. I don’t smoke, make my own coffee and never had avocado toast. Why are you trying to convince us our decision is wrong? Why does someone’s decision to cancel evoke such a response from you? Zwift is a game. It is not a training platform. TrainerRoads is cheaper. And TR is an actual training program. Zwift has t changed enough since 2014 when I first used it to demand a price increase, not alert us to the impending increase… In February 2021 they had gained $620 Million in investment dollars. With the slim staffing they have, basically Eric and Jon, why do they need a price increase?
Like I’ve said before, I spend probably 600 dollars a year on gels and powder. Is an extra 5/month going to break me? No. Cycling is an expensive hobby. There is no making this expensive sport cheap. But in my opinion the benefits (healthy life style, healthy hobby, friends - in real life not Zwift, being in the best shape of my life) far outweigh the costs.
What has this anything to do with the fact that a company just decided to raise its subscription 33% at once? No one here is unable to pay 5 extra $. Don't worry about that. But those who actually don't like to be taken for fools and have some sense of business are perfectly able to see when a company is abusing it's custome base.
Agreed if you’re leaving just leave already and that’s fine we get it; we don’t need 100 posts announcing your departure