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Garmin CEO Hints More Paywalls And Enshittification Are Coming, Falsely Claims Users Love It
from the enshittify-ALL-the-things! dept
We recently noted how device maker Garmin had decided to follow in the footsteps of Google’s Fitbit, and begin putting basic features behind an annoying subscription paywall to goose revenues. Garmin’s new “premium” Garmin+ tier takes several features users already enjoyed for free, put them behind a $7 per month paywall, and called it innovation.
Users are pretty broadly pissed about it. In part because Garmin smartwatches are already significantly more expensive than many brands. And because they’re now paying more money for the same services. And the new services Garmin has added to justify a “premium price” — like a new “AI” assistant — suck.
Speaking on the company’s latest earnings call, Garmin CEO Cliff Pemble responded to questions about the backlash by first lying and claiming that Garmin customers really like the direction Garmin is heading (a five second tour of the Garmin subreddit makes it very clear that’s not true). He then promised that more of this kind of enshittification was definitely coming:
“I think we’ve been saying for a while that we are evaluating opportunities to have a premium offering on Garmin Connect,” Pemble responded. “I think the developments of AI and particularly around AI-based insights for our users was one of those things that we felt was important to recognize the value for the investment that it takes to do.”
Again though, reviews of the “AI” features they’re adding are extremely bad, aren’t as good as other devices or fitness apps, and are often subject to basic math mistakes. Again it appears we’ve taken software and some light LLM automation, thrown the “AI” tag on it, and demanded that consumers both be stunned by the innovation and accept higher prices for existing services.
For a while Garmin differentiated itself from competitors like Fitbit for not doing this kind of predatory bullshit. If you dig through Reddit comments, it’s clear that a lack of subscription paywall is what drew a ton of customers to the brand in the first place.
But now that Garmin has decided to hop on this treadmill of goosing earnings by sucking value out of the free tier, it will never end. Company execs have deluded themselves into thinking this kind of paywalling is innovation, when it’s just mindless extraction and gatekeeping that harms customer loyalty.
Pemble, of course, can’t admit any of this to investors keen on improved quarterly returns at any cost, so it creates both a weird anti-consumer slippery slope, and a sort of willful delusion to prop it up. It also creates a new opportunity for future smart device competitors to make market inroads by not being nickel-and-diming assholes keen on insulting their customers’ intelligence.
Filed Under: ai, apps, enshittification, fitness, garmin premium+, paywalls, smartwatch, tracking
Companies: garmin
Comments on “Garmin CEO Hints More Paywalls And Enshittification Are Coming, Falsely Claims Users Love It”
I suspect the root issue is the hardware lasts for years, and like most growth-obsessed public companies they’re flailing for a way to move to recurring subscription plans. Garmin fitness watches are great hardware, but the app is terrible and always has been. The moment they lock up data pushes to other platforms (e.g. Strava) behind their paywall is the moment I get a Coros.
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And LLM are very expensive to create, train and run. Most of the time, hardware and software teams work of different constraints and goals, and it may even probable than Garmin has outsourced LLM/AI team, and the so the final product reflects that.
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They could just raise prices across the board, though. That’s what the videogame industry is doing. Just look at Nintendo.
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Not really comparable; game consoles aren’t a “buy once, then don’t spend any more money on it until your old one breaks” market. They already have an assumed ongoing revenue stream, in the form of new games coming out.
And while I’ll certainly raise an eyebrow at the cost of the Switch 2, I’m not too bothered by the increasing prices of AAA games. $80? I paid that for Chrono Trigger, 30 years ago, not adjusted for inflation.
And there’s a thriving scene of indie games that don’t cost that much, not to mention frequent sales. (Granted, Nintendo’s sales aren’t as frequent or as good as everybody else’s.) I spend too much on games, but at least I have a hell of a lot of them.
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That’s sort of my point, though: The consoles themselves are, to some extent, hardware “loss leaders” to the big revenue streams of software (games) and subscription services (online gaming, game passes). Nintendo probably made more money from Switch games than it did from the Switch itself.
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60 years ago, everyone just expected their devices to last for decades. With repairs, of course, so the manufacturers included schematics.
One obvious difference is that industries such as radio, television, and kitchen appliances were growth industries. Most people didn’t have all that stuff, and the positive opinions of existing owners would help attract new buyers. But it seems like this should apply to Garmin today. They’re destroying their reputation while most people still do not own smart watches or fitness trackers. This is the type of poor decision that could kill an entire industry (remember 3-D television?).
This could be part of the problem, too. How do new competitors get established when people who own similar equipment tolerate the frog-burning? (I’ve been in that same situation: “I hope by the time this thing dies, the competition has improved.”)
Ulterior enshittification is profitable for CEOs
Just think about it: if you go all the way to eleven on enshittification, there will be a short-time bump in revenue and an utter loss of customer satisfaction.
This combines into a golden parachute for the CEO: they get ousted while the money for royally gilding their exit appears available to the board from the last earning report.
Now with the money gone, the next CEO has to think twice about rolling back a revenue stream if they want their own ouster not end up a cheap affair.
Actually, so far they haven’t put any previously free things behind a paywall. It really is an add-on (so far). Which I’m ok with. I don’t want analysis of my results or AI coaching or anything like that, so as long as they continue to let me get my data out for free, and have a decent historical view of my data in the basic tier that comes with the hardware purchase, all good. If putting some “premium” stuff behind a paywall keeps the hardware prices reasonable, I’m ok with it. Yes, reasonable is quite subjective, but my Fenix 6 Sapphire has cost me somewhere in the range of 35 cents a day over it’s lifetime and shows no signs of stopping, that’s easily worth the data it’s collected for me and the daily value I get out of it.
CEO: how can we make this good thing and make it worse for our customers?
Marketing: AI!
Finance: And we’ll charge them extra for it!
CEO: Ka-ching! Trebles all round!
As a Garmin user for many years, and in reviewing the Connect+ offering; they have not taken any existing features behind the paywall. They have made the new “AI” features paywalled. But existing features, to include their Garmin Coach plans, remain free. Yes, they’ve clouded things by adding additional features that improve the free offerings, but as of today I still have access to everything I had access to previously.
I like how one of the early posts in that reddit thread is “here’s a project I made so we can bypass Garmin.”
Have it both ways
“I think the developments of AI and particularly around AI-based insights for our users was one of those things that we felt was important to recognize the value for the investment that it takes to do.”
And here I thought AI was intended to help reduce costs…
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For the company, not for the customer. “Passing savings on to the customer” is a lie.
At this point
I plan to move from garmin to just a cheap waterproof casio with a heart rate monitor. No apps, no nonsense, no kilojoules.
Maybe an older, cheap apple watch for tracking swims and runs.
I don’t want to have to pay to use what I’ve already paid for.
You don't understand
The company people don’t look at reddit (what people say they like/they don’t like), they look at the actual data (what people do). If people keep subscribing to get these “premium” services, it means they like it.
In other words, if you say you don’t like shit, but you keep eating shit when it’s offered, it’s only logical to assume that you like shit.
So.. Destroy the only reason I would have ever picked it over something else.
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“Only reasons” are outliers and not readily learnt in business school. Eliminating them places managers without domain specific knowledge on an equal footing with experienced ones.
Obliterating the outliers leads to manageable processes. That allows you to reliably keep a business near bankruptcy and switch companies at predictable times.
It is the difference between managing post carriages and race horses. The former allows you to treat horses as an expendible resource, the latter requires specific knowledge and talent to retain the value.
The built-in instincts of a working business establish layers shielding each level from interference in matters that where special competence is required.
Enter Trump.
Garmin’s new business plan: charge you $7 a month to remind you that your watch is slowly turning into a robot that doesn’t know math — but hey, at least it’s “premium” broken!
I dropped Garmin for my smart devices and went mostly in with Withings and a Pixel devices. I’ve also got the lifetime subscription LoseIt. They’re all doing this. Every one of them have added some sort of premium monthly, for pay service.
Well, when you’re the last of the industry to be worse, what’s the point of not being worse anymore?
-Wall Street, probably
‘Look, I love getting money, so obviously our customers must love giving it to me!’
lets see the truth
once you create a product
And cant find a way to improve it to Add Money to the product
What do you do?
Raise the price, over and over.
Then Ppl figure out a Cellphone works also.
Then they Raise the price Again to get the FAST LAST Bucks.
Its not that you cant add features? Camera? Larger Display? Quick access Buttons? More Camera’s for Side View incase the person who stole your car Never crossed in front? Rear view camera?
How Much can you charge for something that WAS $50-100.
Simple
If you don’t want a service/product that will eventually end up down the drain of enshittification, don’t go public with your company, or instead incorporate as a B-Corp.
Do consumers really need to have savings, though? Wouldn’t all their money be better in the hands of a company or CEO?
Tech bros need the line to always go up. AI is new “next big thing” so “surely it will work this time.”
The actual wants and need of the customers never even enters their minds.
Garmin InReach subscribers squeezed too
I’ve had a Garmin InReach for 10 years. It’s a GPS, mapping, Iridium satellite texting eevice. Using a plan that was $30/year, plus $30/month to activate, with unlimited position info and 40 texts. This suited our summer travel needs perfectly. Cost to me, $100/year
They can’t leave well enough alone. So the new plan is $9/month, nothing included. They now charge for every position update and every text message. Our previous uses will now cost $300/year.
That’s about $20 a day for the days we’re actually traveling and using it. $1 per hour.
In a year, I’d spend almost as much for the subscription as it cost to buy the InReach device! Paid $350 at REI on sale.
Nice piece of hardware, but fuck Garmin.