Fitbit Users Still Pissed At Google For Outages And Making Everything Subscription Based
from the oxygen-is-now-a-subscription-service dept
Given Wall Street’s insatiable demand for improved quarterly returns at any cost, a growing number of companies seem intent on nickel-and-diming once happy customers into oblivion. For many companies, that means taking a feature that was free or already paid for as part of the device’s retail price, then shoving it into a subscription tier (see: BMW’s plan to make heated seats a luxury subscription service).
Amazon’s Ring has been busy annoying users with its plans to take basic functionality (even simple notifications), and making them subscription based. So is Google owned Fitbit, which has increasingly put basic health monitoring functionality behind a subscription paywall, even as it eliminates popular features and continues to struggle with basic service outages.
Last week, Google announced it would be trying to make amends with Fitbit users by opening up more of Fitbit’s Health Metrics Dashboard to nonsubscribers. But industry watchers argue it’s not as big of a deal as Google insists, and likely won’t be enough to make annoyed customers happy:
today’s announcement isn’t as impressive as it might seem at first glance. When the Health Metrics Dashboard was initially introduced, it was a Premium exclusive. Then, in 2021, Fitbit expanded access to the dashboard across some of its older products and allowed nonsubscribers to view their daily and seven-day trends. What today’s move really does is add 30-day and 90-day trend views and any associated insights that come with longer-term monitoring. It was only a matter of time before these metrics were moved out from behind the Fitbit Premium paywall.
Basically, Google threw a few crumbs at Fitbit customers who are increasingly questioning their $80 annual subscription, particularly in wake of all the major outages.
Wall Street wants what it wants, but feeding that demand is never a particularly sustainable cycle when it comes to quality products and happy subscribers. The more Google/Fitbit try to squeeze, the more annoyed customers will flock to health-monitoring alternatives like Garmin, which sells more expensive fitness watches, but also doesn’t (yet) nickel-and-dime users with subscriptions of dubious value.
Filed Under: fitbit outage, fitness, health metrics, smartwatch, subscription fees
Companies: fitbit, google
Comments on “Fitbit Users Still Pissed At Google For Outages And Making Everything Subscription Based”
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Haartransplantatie
Thanks for helpfull writing. this article very imporant
What unhappy Fitbit users need to understand is that after their preferred platform was bought by Google they have 2 choices:
1) Pay a combined billion/year in subscription fees to become a big enough revenue source that Google will actually care about keeping it alive.
2) Switch to the competition.
If they don’t want option 1, they should plan to do 2 quickly before Google decides to kill them on no notice.
Re:
The general problem with most fitness products and services is that, for most customers, they’re a fad. People buy a Fitbit thinking that, if they only had more data, they’d be able to get in shape. A year or two later, putting on the Fitbit is the only “fitness habit” they’ve acquired, and if any friction appears, the device is gonna be relegated to a dresser drawer.
If the product had been subscription-based from the beginning, there might have been a decent number of people who’d kind of “forgotten” about this annual small expense (meaning they didn’t care enough to cancel). But I’d be surprised if a company could get more than a third of users to start paying for any fitness subscription after years of getting it for free.
why oh why
Why take your data off your wrist, and send it to ANYWHERE?
Because its on your phone, not your computer or paper.
Why is it that for all the IOT devices they All try to send off my data so I have to pay for it. A small computer and router will work great for most security systems. Even send to your Gmail, private account, for New mail, if things change.
Then we get what are App’s. All over your phone to talk to the IOT. But wont show much to you, unless you pay more to check it remote.
Fitbit, etc.
Go get the open source Gadget Bridge on your favorite source for apps.
https://www.xda-developers.com/gadgetbridge-open-source-replacement-app-pebble-mi-band-amazfit/
Even works on my Pinetime watch.