Peloton announces $95 “used equipment activation fee”

AnActOfCreation@programming.dev to Technology@lemmy.world – 605 points – Peloton announces $95 “used equipment activation fee”
arstechnica.com
  • Peloton is introducing a $95 "used equipment activation fee" for bikes purchased from outside its official channels in the US and Canada, aiming to boost revenue and maintain onboarding quality for new subscribers.
  • The fee has sparked criticism as it reduces the cost savings typically associated with buying secondhand equipment and diverges from practices in other industries, potentially discouraging used market purchases.
  • Peloton's hardware sales continue to decline, but subscription revenue has seen slight growth; the company still faces financial struggles despite cost-cutting measures and layoffs.
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Why are we comfortable with not owning the things we buy :/

Im not, I wouldnt buy one.

It's not enough to not buy one. We need to demand that Congress and the FTC do their goddamn jobs and quit letting every company fuck over the public.

Yeah that isnt their job, thats just how they are marketed. The US is a corporation and everyone in it is doomed to the rat race.

So so many issues that just happen in other countries.

For everyone with a peloton, you can flash the bike with an aftermarket software.

flash the bike with an aftermarket software.

Not a phrase I'd ever thought I'd hear.

Given how ebikes are becoming more popular every year, and all manufacturers are locking them down with canbus, you're gonna hear that phrase a lot in the future

They already charge a ridiculous monthly fee just to use the bike.

And sure, it's a nicer exercise bike, but you can get a similar experience with a much cheaper bike and a tablet.

Yep. I’ve been doing this for a while now with a cheap old no-name bike and an ipad. Poor man’s peloton ftw.

How do you do this with a tablet? Can you buy like a wheel sensor or something?

I don’t have anything fancy going on with the tablet. Like it’s not tracking the bike or my workout or anything like that. I just use my watch for fitness tracking and put up either exercise videos or a stream or something to watch on the tablet.

I mean, there's a reason almost nobody is buying their products.

I'm not which is why I don't use photoshop or lightroom.

Pssst. You could always pirate them.

It's unappealing to have software be hostile. Software that does what I want only if it's creator doesn't actively oppose it.. that need not be on my computer.

Those ones are actually kinda hard to pirate. Especially if you had the creative cloud on your pc at some point.

Do you see an alternative? Each year more companies move to a subscription model, even when it doesn't make the slightest bit of sense. In many cases if you have the time to do proper research and/or a lot of technical savvy, you can find alternatives from companies no one recognizes. Most people don't have the time or know-how, and the companies that like subscription models are spending billions making sure their names are the only ones people think exist.

Update consumer protection laws and actually enforce them. Laws that were written back when tech would come with the schematics.

This is about an exercise bike, right? Why the heck is there so much nonsense surrounding it?

Because it's an exercise bike ✨on the internet✨

Why make crazy amounts of money on a stationary bike only once? When you can every time they want to use the bike? Capitalism innovation for the win baby!!!

The F in IoT stands for Freedom

They hired some PR firm that did a really good job of marketing the enshitification to a specific demographic (high income millennials)

Peloton is designed for rich people. They don't say it explicitly because thar ruins the illusion, but the bike is meant to be a status distinction. You may only own it if you're eager to be seen as someone who spends too much money on an exercise bike.

Ah thanks. Though for enough $$ they could get even more status with a vintage Cinelli track bike and some Weyless rollers. I mean I'd be impressed if I saw that. Unlike with the Peliton.

That doesn't have brand status.

Cinelli is a much more prestigious brand than Peloton, heh.

To you. Not to the people that they're trying to impress.

Yeah I guess I'm showing my age. Still though, there must have been other fancy bikes after I got out of highschool.

Jokes on them, I think lowly of people with exercise bikes. I'm on a level of pretentious they can't reach.

6 more...

Yeah I mean I'm not surprised that this business is failing. It always just seemed like a worse and more expensive version of something that was always inherently pretty boring.

I mean it was already overpriced for what it was, and it was only really good/popular during covid. A lot of people now will either go to the gym for classes or just get a bike without a $12-$49 monthly fee. I just can't wait to see how long until they lock the wheels without a subscription

So they lost resale value and will have more trouble selling new hardware as well?

My thoughts exactly. This seems like a short term play to boost the stock price, let execs get out of the market, then sell off the company before it goes under.

Also how are they gonna prove you didn’t buy it before the announcement and just didn’t register/use it until after? Seems to me that’s gonna be sticky in the eyes of copyright terms & conditions

I don't get what it has to do with copyright?

It's as simple as they built the equipment to require an app. And it needs the cloud, so its either accept the license or stop using the hw.

It's happening everywhere.

Thanks, I meant terms & conditions, fixed. If I buy a product that does not have an activation fee in the t&c at time of purchase, legally I probably shouldn't have to pay it even if they implement it later and I waited to activate. That would maybe still require you to sign up even if you aren't paying to get the t&c then though. It could be argued that since the fee was not in place at time of purchase it shouldn't apply and that is what I meant by 'sticky' is all.

let execs get out of the market,

A new business architecture without this particular flaw seems to be in pretty capitalist demand today.

Maybe something about conflict of interest being illegal for such positions. Maybe just cooperatives with modern technologies to help make them more organized.

Company: we're limping, how can we recover and pick up the pace?

CEO: How about we shot ourselves on the foot?

Company: die

CEO: Why would customer do this to us?

If this shit is allowed, every other company will follow. Imagine buying a used car and getting hit up with a $1000 activation fee, fuck that

Don't give them new ideas. Cars are already slowly turning into a SaaS on wheels.

They do. At least for optional features like Apple Car and Android Auto.

The tech world has become and endless conveyor belt of stupid greedy miseries.

No subscription-based company products should be in public schools. That would stop with inculcating model acceptance.

No federal agency should be using any subscription product, including any cloud products. Public data should not be capable of being held hostage or monetised.

Both are a waste of public funds and set a bad example.

We can put marketing teams in the fields and mines doing honest toil.

The tech world has become and endless conveyor belt of stupid greedy miseries.

Simpler. It's easy to create artificial maintenance costs there as needed. That, of course, wouldn't work well without oligopoly.

Government officials are interested in buying such products due to kickbacks, which means that everybody else directly or indirectly needs them for interoperability. Thus oligopoly persists.

It's as if only radical solutions would work, be it radical authoritarian or radical libertarian.

It’s easy to create artificial maintenance costs there as needed.

That reminds me of the bricked polish trains, not only did they create artificial maintenance cost, they also tried to ensure that only they (and not their competitors) would be able to do that maintenance (unflipping the kill-switch)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrlrbfGZo2k

In that particular case it was plain sabotage, I've read that article. They also denied knowledge of that kill-switch.

I meant cases where both the vendor and the buyer know how these are formed, but due to kickbacks are fine with it.

Thing is cloud stuff does cost money to run. In the end even electricity is a subscription.

So they shouldn't lease buildings, or subscribe to water and power? Should they also not use document archival and storage services that have existed for decades?

Water and power still need to be reconfigured, obvs we're not there yet, but they don't contain my personal info and can't leak it.

I'm not against govt working with entities when needed, but it's become a lazy solution to outsource functions and often the blame for failure as well, rather than build a responsible solution.

It's gotten too cozy and intertwined.

So you're saying there will soon be a scene dedicated to cracking Peloton software.

Cuz that's what I'm hearing.

Already exists. The Peloton subreddit has a guide on rooting your bike and installing custom apks.

Damn. Might be time to pick up a used one.

Thanks for the heads up.

Don't Tesla do the same bullshit? If you paid for some feature then sell the car, the new owner has to pay for it again?

This shit should be illegal.

Just outlaw things that don't work without internet connectivity. Activation included.

AAAAND that's the moment I'd go from frothing progressive to bomb-slinging radical. That very moment.

Why?

I hate the IoT with a fervor of ten thousand rabid honeybadgers and if it were legally mandated for every piece of technology, I would go full luddite and tear as much down on my way out to a cave in the woods as I could.

Ah, I meant the opposite, outlaw things that only work with IoT. Leave things that don't.

But I'm not against you going bomb-slinging radical to make it happen

That's the "full self driving". All the newer cars come with computers capable of doing it, but you either pay a $99/month subscription or a one time $8k charge.

I just checked out their website and apparently you can either transfer it to a new Tesla or leave it with the car and basically sell it to the new owner. Not what I expected at all.

https://www.tesla.com/support/fsd-transfer

there's a fucktonne of stuff that SHOULD be illegal that isn't because no one has made a big enough stink about it yet.

refined sugar for one.

Cloning celebrities for sex trafficking for another.

Cory Doctorow calls this one "it's ok because we do it with an app" and urges regulators to enforce the laws already on the books. It's an absurd defense legally, but there's no enforcement of antitrust or consumer law at all anymore

Lets hope a blue wave changes that. I mean I don't have any illusions that dems aren't almost as corporate owned, but Harris has voted more consistently with Bernie than any other congressman

If you sell it to a new owner directly you decide if you want to leave it with the car or take it for yourself (assuming you have another Tesla where to use it).

Only if you sell it to Tesla, they will remove it.

This is basically admitting that consumers don't actually value their subscription service for the cost. If users were buying used bikes and signing up for subscriptions Peloton would be thrilled, they would do everything that they could to encourage that like free trials. But it must be that most people who buy used bikes don't find the subscription worth it and cancel within a few months. Adding this fee both extracts more money and creates a sunk cost fallacy that will cause them to go longer before cancelling.

If the product sold itself they would just let people pay them subscriptions, its basically free money.

Is this like an.... idiot tax?

The “signing up for Planet Fitness membership but not actually using the gym” is the real idiot tax. Well, yeah, I guess this one is too.

But this fee wasn't there when people originally purchased this was it? If so, they will now have a less valuable product since they won't be able to sell it as easily. Or are they only doing it for new units?

I cannot understand why lemmy gets up in arms over bullshit like this. If the idiots wish to pay, let them.

The people getting up in arms are upset because they see it as a slippery slope. First just the idiots pay for subscriptions, then it creeps into the lives of everyone. And eventually it's harder to avoid the bullshit than just pay, and the whole market becomes more predatory. Like if the idiots give companies an inch, they'll eventually take a mile

I predicted Peloton's failure on launch, two of my cryptobro friends laughed and dumped semi serious money into it.

LOLLLLLLLLLLL

Wife and I bought a Peloton. It works well, we love it. I'm going to cancel the subscription and just use the damn thing without attending the classes etc like an old school stationary bike.

Sucks bc I enjoy a couple of the classes but this is BS

If more people were like you we wouldn't have such shitty companies. They'd still be thirsty for every last penny but they'd know they cannot get away with it.

I think it is the opposite. Because everyone knows they don't need the subscription, right or wrong Peloton needs to make up for subscriptions losses by introducing these one-time fees.

So, you mean the proper response to the failure of a shitty business model is to introduce a worse business model?

Questions: Do you lose any other features besides classes offlining it? Can it run linux?

If you can't answer that last one, no worries I'm sure someone who can answer it will see it, going by lemmy OS use statstics

It's a huge tablet screen, probably running Android or if I had to guess. I haven't bothered trying to look. Joining my friends in classes was fun and the mini social network aspect of it, especially during the lockdowns. But in the end the stationary bike aspect works and I dont have to pay to go to a studio somewhere

Peloton is introducing a $95 “used equipment activation fee” for bikes purchased from outside its official channels in the US and Canada, aiming to boost revenue and maintain onboarding quality for new subscribers.

Uh... what? No

For a subscription fee of [+$5/six months] your brand new pair of Peloton Underwear™️ won't shit themselves.

I recently read that a baby crib did the same thing they charge an activation fee after it’s sold. First we had subscriptions now we have reselling activation fees. It’s just another way to get a little bit more money.

Should just be illegal. Either you buy a thing or you rent it. This is cheating.

Anyone who has already purchased a Prloton, should be able to resell it. If they can’t, then I see a class action coming.

New sales could do this I guess, hopefully people will stop buying from crap companies

If they can’t, then I see a class action coming.

They talk about class action lawsuits so often, do those really still work to kill a company?

Cradlewise. At least that is a one time $120 fee and you don’t need an additional app subscription to use it, for now. It might get worse as the first set of users are just starting to sell theirs, as it’s useless after 2 years.

For Pelaton, it’s reactivation fee + app subscription.

Is this even legal in some other countries outside of the US and Canada lol, I know there is some countries out there with quite strict consumer protection and I'm pretty sure second hand Market is one of the more regulated ones

Still too steep if thats what they consider a bargain price. Im all for companies making money long as they pay their rank and file fairly though

They should have been more conservative in their business and expected that it was only surging because of the pandemic. They cashed in on the IPO but should have gotten out. Now they’re beholden to investors. Probably made enough money to not care if the company crashes and burns.

Will no one think of the onboarding quality?!

Havent heard anyone talk about this but its particularly inisidious because most likely consumers wont find out about this fee until AFTER they buy it...