The subscribers aren't subscribing for using the treadmill, they are subscribing for fitness courses and the likes.
Which... isn't a bad business model per se IMO. With the current trend of "self improvement", there are enough people willing to pay lots of money, for everything from gym memberships to individual personal trainers.
The issue is: this is not going to be an exponential-stock-growth-style business model, as many seem to expect. There is no hope for the usual "undercut the competition in pricing and establish a monopoly that can be used for rent-seeking afterwards" VC model, no hope for a make-everyone-filthy-rich acquisition by an established market player, at best this is going to be a steady, "boring" cash cow.
(Note, I don't hold any stakes in Peloton or competitors)
Aren't gyms generally famous for cashing in on people who sign up for memberships they never actually use? Seems like a genius plan to disrupt that tried and tested business model with a more efficient alternative where users buy the gyms for you so you don't need to maintain them.
(unless you want your job to be meaningful or something)
I think Richard Simmons already brought us this disruption, and you can pay what you want at the closest yard sale!
The slide deck is comical in its defensiveness of the company itself, how does one compare video remote classes with boutique classes that had better have 8- students to explain $300/month?! Or is this people in LA assuming their local phenomenons are normal?
Second hand kit? Aren't you and your goals of self improvement worth more than that? ;-)
I do agree on costs, though. I'm a pretty keen cyclist (outdoors) and dabble in running. I have tried various fitness apps like Strava out of curiosity, even played around trying to analyze my own gps traces in Jupyter to figure out my aerobic threshold. But I don't see any of the apps as worth paying a subscription for [1].
[1] Except maybe trailforks, if I'm on holiday in an area I don't know that has unofficial mtb trails well documented on that platform. But now they've made it proprietary I'm far less inclined to contribute my own trails to the database, so go figure.
You don't need any of their hardware. A large portion of the courses are exercises that need nothing but a floor. The quality of the classes is very good. Its a SaaS media company with an optional hardware upsell.
Which... isn't a bad business model per se IMO. With the current trend of "self improvement", there are enough people willing to pay lots of money, for everything from gym memberships to individual personal trainers.
The issue is: this is not going to be an exponential-stock-growth-style business model, as many seem to expect. There is no hope for the usual "undercut the competition in pricing and establish a monopoly that can be used for rent-seeking afterwards" VC model, no hope for a make-everyone-filthy-rich acquisition by an established market player, at best this is going to be a steady, "boring" cash cow.
(Note, I don't hold any stakes in Peloton or competitors)