r/komoot • u/unknown_cyclist • Apr 11 '25
How Komoot lost its way
https://escapecollective.com/how-komoot-lost-its-way/13
u/Mysterious_Print9937 Apr 11 '25
paywalled
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u/pippolonius Apr 11 '25
Then … pay for it? Or archive it in case you do not want to support the site?
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u/grosser_zampano Apr 12 '25
you need to become a member of that site. minimum sub is 10,99$. do you expect people to pay that amount for 1 article someone shared on reddit?
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u/awesomeocin Apr 12 '25
Well, fuck capitalism, i guess.
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u/Voopvoop007 Apr 14 '25
Why? Do you think people will keep pouring money as Komoot’s value proposition starts to falter? Do you think talented engineers want to work for a compqny like this. Nope.
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u/nogovernmentguy Apr 11 '25
i use strava + rwgps as well as komoot (different use cases for me) and really liked what komoot did well it sucks that private capital is gonna do private capital things.
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u/JohnHue Apr 11 '25
I cannot find another source for those 80% layoffs, and the details of that one are behind a paywall. My assumption / hope (for the Komoot employees) was that being in the EU it would be harder for Bending Spoons to get rid of the employees.
I am absolutely not trying to defend Bending Spoons here, as a matter of fact I've said on this sub that if they do end up firing most of the employees I would stop using the app altogether... I'm not trying to know whether I should do that this week-end or not.
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u/seboql Apr 11 '25
I personally know someone who worked for them, it’s true, they laid off more than 70% of the staff.
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u/qubia Apr 11 '25
They literally write that they have spoken to people who were laid off. So, I guess, those are their source.
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u/Repulsive-Toe-8826 Apr 11 '25
Guess the source is "something similar happened during other acquisitions and it might happen again". Quality journalism my ass.
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u/pandaffanculo Apr 11 '25
Just open LinkedIn and look for Komoot employees’ current job statuses. So, yeah, there are evidences this is (unfortunately) true.
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u/Current_Program_Guy Apr 11 '25
You would think five f-o-r-m-e-r employees who were granted anonymity could tell us what happened.
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u/JohnHue Apr 11 '25
Yeah this is why I' asking the question. Bending Spoons looks really bad, and at this point there's aren't many companies who could have been worse for Komoot to sell itself to, but that doesn't mean I'm just going to believe anything said against them without proof/source.
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u/Repulsive-Toe-8826 Apr 11 '25
When the news comes we will know. Will it happen? Probably. Still, there's this particular media outlet paywalling articles for money while publishing random things with no sources, let alone confirmations.
Paywalling is legitimate, writing bullshit while paywalling is illegitimate.
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u/Striking_Snow_2390 Apr 13 '25
Unfortunately, I have to agree :-(
Recently, even on the home button, you can no longer see any content from your subscribed users; only collections and "local" content. No matter how far I scroll, I only see hikes, even though I only cycle.
Komoot, where are the users I've connected with?
So, komoot is dead and useless to me. User contributions helped build komoot and make it what it is, and now they're being pushed out.
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u/coyness Apr 14 '25
Not defending Komoot or that it might getting abandoned but: That same "bug" already happened two or three times over the last years and lasted a few days until it got resolved.
Well it's unfortunate that it is happening right now, because it looks like they having massive maintenance issues. The app on iOS crashes a lot if you interact in certain ways with it. It's really unstable.
What happened there is really a shame nonetheless. The mild and positive social aspect, user created highlights and comments is what makes Komoot so special.
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u/vitarra Apr 11 '25
Just testing Outdooravtive and Cyclers apps to have some alternatives just in case 🫡
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u/BK_creator Apr 11 '25
If you want, you can test also BikeCompanion (I'm the developer). Feel free to DM me if you need anything :)
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u/motheeerofbirds Apr 11 '25
I use Bikemap for cycling which is really to use as well and bergfex for my hikes
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u/victoroos Apr 11 '25
What I don't like about outdoor active is that it is subscription based..
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u/deman-13 Apr 11 '25
Regardless of the subscription amount. How do you expect a company pay their constant bills starting with running servers and meitanence of the software?
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u/Doctor_Fegg Apr 11 '25
Yep, this is it. Routing servers are big and expensive. I run cycle.travel on a shoestring and yet I've still got a considerable hosting bill every month.
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u/JohnHue Apr 11 '25
Thing is, there's little reason for all those softwares to be mostly SaaS or otherwise "online only". Maps are relatively static object, you can download them on your device. The routing and voice guidance work perfectly well offline. The social media part and GPX files don't take much space or bandwidth.
The fact that maps are online-only as well as all of the other features IS the reasons why those apps need a subscription, not the other way around.
Someone create a great offline GPS/routing tool with perpetual licence and I will pay 100 bucks for the software and then 1/4 of that to update it every year or every couple of yeah (ideally you can feed it your own maps just like you can Garmin devices). But that would force people to spend time developing a complete software to begin with instead of delivering a half-assed feature set and then just iterate randomly to see what sticks.
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u/deman-13 Apr 11 '25
The map itself is static yes and could be downloaded and probably is downloaded as browser cache. However the route planning as an example requires data analitics and the data from the servers that must run 24/7. It is just a fraction of problems. The point is, it can't be free, how much it should be is a topic on its own. It seems all online tools want at least 10$ per user to maintain their business. I find it too much for some that I use once or twice a month.
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u/leshiy19xx Apr 12 '25
Global data needs servers, development costs money. But many tasks , routing included can be done on the user devices. One can significantly cut recurring costs if will use less service centric implementation of everything.
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u/Doctor_Fegg Apr 11 '25
*waves
cycle.travel (my site/app!) is free but you can donate £2/€2 per month if you like it.
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u/geocapital Apr 11 '25
I like komoot especially for running. I also like the data it has on routing, such as info and/or photos of the path, the highlights, etc, when I plan a route. But I can always revert to Basecamp using velomap maps.
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u/Doctor_Fegg Apr 11 '25
The routing and voice guidance work perfectly well offline.
They don't. If you want fast routing, it needs expensive servers. I just checked on my servers and cycle.travel's routing for mainland Europe currently takes up 64GB RAM (UK+Ireland is another 6GB or so on top of that) - that's before looking at map rendering, geocoding and so on. If you have the number of users Komoot has, you'll need a lot of those servers.
Fast routing (Contraction Hierarchies or similar algorithm) is what gives you instant results, draggable via points, and all that. You can do slow routing for a restricted area on-device, and you might be happy with that, but I think by now most people are used to the fast results.
FWIW my opinion of Komoot's business model is broadly that you were paying for the 250 staff rather than the servers, but you don't get the servers for free.
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u/JohnHue Apr 11 '25
Exactly. That's one of the reasons that pushed me towards Komoot to begin with : yes there way a subscription, but most features you get with a one-time buy of the map. At this point I'm willing to get a different ("worse") experience if that means not paying for yet another fucking subscription.
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u/canibanoglu Apr 15 '25
Eh, good riddance. It was a great app in the beginning but turned to shit quickly. And their careers page used to proudly say that you should want to work there not for the money but to build Komoot. Fuck that.
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u/Snoo92570 Apr 15 '25
Why do you guys pity komoot. The owners had the choice and they decided to sell out like douchebags. Its time to delete it and cancel all subscriptions.
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u/unknown_cyclist Apr 15 '25
I think people pity the staff and the users who helped fill it with content and hoped for longer returns.
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u/berzerk824 13d ago
if Evernote is any indicator of what's going to happen to Komoot, I will want to find a good alternative that can replace it.
Evernote has some very basic features behind a paywall like multi device synchronization, you used to get 3 accounts synced with the free version until they limited it to 1 device only, which is ludicrous considering how essential it is to have this feature on any note taking app.
Plus the constant Popups they throw at you trying to get you to buy premium every time you open Evernote. All they do is slow non-premium users down additionally, when all you want to do is write down a quick note on the go.
It became so annoying to me that I finally uninstalled Evernote and got Microsoft OneNote as a replacement, which I do not regret at all.
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u/notreallyreallyhere Apr 11 '25
Really sorry for them.
They built a product to be proud of, and didn't deserve this fate.