Comment by Stevvo
Comment by Stevvo 7 days ago
The 3D terrain stuff in FATMAP was great. I don't get why Strava killed it.
Comment by Stevvo 7 days ago
The 3D terrain stuff in FATMAP was great. I don't get why Strava killed it.
Planning and navigating, the key features for me were:
- high res satellite imagery available for both summer and winter
- aspect and gradient shading
- routes and tracks shared and discoverable with description, altitude graph etc. for freeride routes, ski tours, hikes (great for visiting somewhere new)
I also enjoyed things like sharing the link to the 3D overview with friends after an epic day, but that’s both more easily replaced and less valuable to me.
I’m muddling through with a whole host of apps (Maps3D, Outmap, CalTopo etc.) and have tried and given up on still more, but FATMAP was so much better than any current alternative, particularly for skiing. (Mostly in Europe, if that makes a difference.)
No announcement has ever been made about the integration of FATMAP into Strava. The only announcement was that FATMAP would be discontinued.
Strava has been stagnating for several years now in terms of functionality. The last two evolutions I remember are the introduction of the dark theme, which has been requested for years, and the AI coaching tips, which are unbelievably bad.
Personally, I'd like to see more competition in the field of sports apps. It's becoming increasingly difficult to find interesting activities in the Strava feed. There is little or no possibility of editorialization (highlighting certain contents, collections, etc.).
It's very difficult to find a friend's activity if it's more than a week old. Would you like to know if anyone has made it over the pass at this time of year? Fuck you, here are some Zwift activities.
> No announcement has ever been made about the integration of FATMAP into Strava. The only announcement was that FATMAP would be discontinued.
This isn’t true at all.
The original posts on their own sites are no longer up (though they are likely on archive.org), but you can see from the articles that followed the press release that they were quite explicit about this.
For example on TechCrunch[0]:
> The ultimate long-term goal for Strava is to integrate Fatmap’s core platform into Strava itself, but that will be a resource-intensive endeavor that won’t happen overnight. And that is why Strava is working to create a single sign-on (SSO) integration in the near-term, meaning that subscribers will be able to access the full Fatmap feature-set by logging into the Fatmap app with their Strava credentials.
> While Strava and Fatmap will remain separate products for now, Strava said that it will decide in the future whether Fatmap will live on as a standalone product once the technical integration has taken place.
> CEO and co-founder Michael Horvath, who stepped down in 2013 before returning as head honcho six years later, said that the Fatmap acquisition is part of Strava’s “ongoing investment to provide a best-in-class digital experience” for those seeking an active lifestyle. “Where other map platforms have been designed for navigating streets and cities, Fatmap built a map designed specifically to help people explore the outdoors,” Horvath told TechCrunch in a Q&A. “We will enable Fatmap technology in all of Strava’s services, empowering anyone to discover and plan an outdoor experience with curated local guides, points of interest and safety information.”
> In terms of timescales, Strava said that it has set up a dedicated team tasked with integrating Fatmap, and it anticipates this to start showing up inside Strava from around mid-2023. The company was also quick to stress that Fatmap’s tech will be available to both free and paid-for Strava members, though certain features relating to maps, discovery and route-planning will be reserved for paying subscribers.
> Strava provided TechCrunch with the following mockup images to give an idea of what Fatmap might look like inside a future incarnation of Strava.
[0] https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/24/strava-acquires-fatmap-a-3...
They have withdrawn this announcement. The only remaining mentions are on the page announcing the closure and the transfer of payments to Strava:
https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/articles/26949702911117-...
They haven't withdrawn everything. I've only just noticed this, but the Strava help centre still states that "FATMAP's 3D maps and other features will be built into Strava to create the world’s best platform for planning, navigating, and sharing outdoor adventures"[0].
There's also a recent comment on an Instagram post[1] about a supposedly recent response from Strava the commenter received that, if accurate, provides some hope.
It'll be interesting to see if anything comes of it, but at this point I also rather hope that something more open, hackable, etc. rises from the ashes of FATMAP.
[0] https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/articles/26949702911117-...
This was so unbelievably disappointing that it was the final straw that caused me to cancel my paid Strava subscription and to delete and stop using the app entirely.
I know plenty of people who’ve done the same, because of one or other wrongheaded decision from Strava.
It's hard to overstate how passionate people were about FATMAP and how crushed they were when it was killed. Putting revenue aside, Strava should have found a way to keep it alive to maintain goodwill.