I'd ask "what were they thinking?" but it apparently sells like hotcakes, so it's me who's out of touch.
This is a pretty classic problem in product management - you have to avoid adding features what could drive your largest market away from the product.
I don't think that's Peloton's moat at all. For that there are much better alternatives. This is for casual gym goers.
I don't understand what you thought the product was? It's an exercise bike. You do exercise classes on it. It's not a games machine. What were they thinking? They were thinking it's an exercise bike.
> And gamification through badges is pretty standard exercise fair. My parent’s senior community even has gamification via small prizes for how many days you go to the gym.
I was just pointing out that Peloton does gamification through badges and that it includes an equivalent of days going to the gym.
You can imagine "games" in this sense being competitions played out via the bike, so time trials, race tournaments, etc. Compete with your friends (or others) to get through a race comparable to Tour de France stages -- something like that. Aside from survival, there is no greater motivator for pushing oneself physically than competition. Games facilitate that.
If you're a competitive person. Not everybody derives motivation from competition.
That depends.
If you're trying to develop a habit of regular exercise for your health (intrinsic motivation), competition (extrinsic motivation) is just as likely to be harmful to your goal.
In my personal case, removing the competitive element was extremely helpful for me to start doing regular exercise for its own sake.
[1] https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22195549/soulcycle-decline-reo...
You can just swipe a credit card (or, probably, ApplePay 1 button purchase) and have it show up at your house and work.
Someone has also now made a physical device to adjust the resistance, so it can be used with other software [0]. I think Peloton really should use ANT+ and open up, would make the bikes usable for many more people. Of course, maybe it's the subscription Peloton wants to make money on, not the bikes?
[0]: https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2020/12/shift-smart-trainer-firs...
It's probably not surprising that a group of tech people tends more towards introversion and exercising alone, whereas the general population likes the group aspect for motivation.
Hydrow goes for the more immersive experience--haven't used one; don't know if it has any third-party support or not.
Most stuff I use for cycling speak ANT+, so it can be combined as one wants. My indoor trainer, my cadance sensor, power meter, speed sensor, HR monitor, watch, head unit, phone, computer all can send or receive through ANT+. That's why you will find most cyclists oppose the Peloton bikes, they are impossible to combine with existing gear.
And that's why this exists! (Though it's BLE, not ANT+.)
I, and most consumers that've been repeatedly burned, go out of our way to avoid products that lock us to them. I'm in the market for an exercise bike, but a lifetime of $35+/mo for classes, in addition to a $2k+ bike with questionable repairability in 1,2,5,10 years, is not something I'll ever want.
Yes, pre-pandemic, there were other people in the room where they recorded the classes. And likely there are other people taking the same class as you, right now. You can see where they're at on the leaderboard. But they're also irrelevant to you. You can just ignore it. You take the class any time you want, and there's one instructor, and the fact that someone in south america happens to be watching the same stream as you isn't really relevant to your experience.
I'd say in the Zwift world, where you race other people on-screen is more of a "group" experience, but again, both of these workouts are highly individual.
I dumped it on craigslist and replaced it with a $250 "dumb" spin bike, a $10 tablet mount, and an Apple watch I already had. I don't get cadence data, but I could with a pedal magnet thing if I actually cared.
Their reddit is also heavily astroturfed, which makes me never want to do business with them again.
Kudos to them for figuring out how to make 100%+ margins, I guess. It's just very much not for me.
For example, if they opened up their platform, then people could just choose other content sources that are free or pay money into someone else's pocket, like other group classes.
Otherwise Peloton could try the eShop approach where their group classes compete on an eShop where they take 30% of the cut, but that market is tiny and still has to compete with just using your iPad while you pedal.
On the other hand, I'd consider buying one if there was more to do than group classes and maybe I'm not alone. I'm not cocky enough to think I know what the masses want, but it does seem like their lack of ambition about what can be done with the bike could be leaving a lot of money on the table.
I'm guessing Peleton is winning at the minute because of it being an integrated unit and having the marketing.
Being able to put hardware together that "does the same thing" is only a fraction of a competitor.
What you describe might work well for a different market.
e.g. https://medium.com/@cezarbabin/hacking-the-peloton-bike-to-p...
or even running Stadia on the peloton
https://www.reddit.com/r/Stadia/comments/gj4aut/wireless_sup...
So they are mostly emulating that experience.
Peloton isn't a hardware company, it's a company that sells streamed sessions with hot spin instructors. The hardware is merely tool for them and creating an ecosystem of competitors on top of the hardware is a definitive non-goal for them. But hardware companies do exist.
I tend to look down on the classist assignment of folks' motivations for buying things. It's almost always projection. How many years did we have to hear about the "status symbol" of a starbucks cup? If only $2 for a cup of black coffee could buy you status, right?
One good example is in-line skating/rollerblading. It was a very popular activity--at least in urban areas--a number of years back and it just sort of petered out. You rarely see someone skating these days.
Why's that unreasonable? When I was trying to get back into shape and add some strength training, I started seeing a personal trainer, which I honestly, probably stuck with for too long. Given per-session costs, it was costing me upwards of $500/mo. Of course that includes use of gym facilities and 1:1 training and advice. Probably one of the best things I ever did.
Basic gym memberships have gotta be at least $100/mo. I'm sure there are countless people paying $200/mo and up. Obviously you get access to a lot more equipment, but you have to go there, too.
I just don't see $40/month as a lot. Maybe I'm strange.
Since then, my wife also added a Peloton treadmill to the mix, which is over 4k. It uses the same subscription. As do the Yoga and stretching and bodyweight strength classes.. and meditation if you're into that. Both of us, 2 pieces of equipment, unlimited classes, on your phone, appletv, whatever. $40/mo.
On the average evening we've got the treadmill and bike going at the same time and when she finishes with her run she's doing stretching and core stuff in the living room while I do more on the bike. The subscription starts to sound like a pretty good deal. But don't tell them that, because we're locked in thanks to the hardware :)
I don't think you can pass this off as a fad- Soul Cycle first hit the scene around 2009, its still around- and they have just released a bike and service as well. Other look alikes have come on the market as well- Tonal and Mirror being the biggest. This is looking less like a fad and more like they were the leading edge of a smart exercise equipment industry.
Sure the specific piece of equipment that is in vogue might come and go, but I think Peloton is here to stay. This doesn't mean that gyms are going to close in the long run, but workout equipment as a service is a class of product that I feel is with us for the long haul.
Its success was mostly due to its novelty and exclusivity. After a while, copycats and their push for growth did them in.
Peloton is the same. They are first to market and have cultivated a level of exclusivity, but there is nothing unique about them that other businesses can’t copy over time (it’s already happening — most exercise companies now have their own Peloclones).
She used to spend a jaw dropping amount on Soul- it was her favorite activity to take her clients to. Around the time they IPO'ed, she felt a change- the expansion took her favorite instructors out of her favorite studios, and often even out of the area as they helped open up locations in LA, Miami, etc. The new ones never had quite the same magnetism- which is of course subjective- most people have their personal favorites, and while there was some overlap, this could differ substantially from person to person. They used to give gifts to their top riders at the end of the year in the form of free classes, that went away, replaced with "charitable donations" and eventually just dropped altogether. Top instructors tried to branch out on their own, some successful, some not, but the point being is that really it was over expansion and IMHO brand dilution, which I guess you could call exclusivity (though I personally feel its a bit different than just exclusivity) that really sent them into a downward trajectory. She went from taking 4-5 classes a week, to mixing in Cycle Bar and other studios, to finally in October 2019 just deciding to get a Peloton.
All that said, they still had 1.62 million rides in 2019... which while down from ~1.8, that's not exactly a fad or a dead business- I actually thought their drop would be far bigger to be honest. Personally though I feel this was less of an effect of a fad, than the more typical story of the bean counters moving in and pursuing growth and next quarter's numbers at the cost of the quality of the brand.
To be honest that article was quite eye opening- I guess what I thought was a unique experience and fandom by my wife was something that the culture carefully cultivated.