Do share Tracy, what are these apps?
I will share what app when itâs appropriate.
apparently we are all on a âneed to knowâ basis⌠why?
NDAs I would imagine.
I can see both sides of this discussion. Zwift is massively hamstrung by a bespoke engine and client side architecture, which along with its funding model really makes efficient progress incredibly difficult. They have been open with their hiring problems. They are in an extremely competitive labour marketplace, both in terms of skills and geography, and that talent doesnât want to work on a bespoke engine for a niche game when they can develop their unity or unreal skills and have the entire world of gaming open to them for future career opportunities. The funding model means they are completely marketing led and not product led, and anyone who has worked for a company with that type of model will know how painful it is.
I do feel like they are living on borrowed time if they have not even started to work on Zwift 2.0 built from the ground up on a common platform with a server authoritative approach. That said, we donât know that they havenât started that work, even though it seems unlikely. Weâre also starting to see some really positive signs around more fundamental progress with a ranking system, race organiser support, and the pack dynamics work. However, if I get excited by that, I then turn to clubs - which because one single person left has made no progress in 6 months and is now basically completely useless functionality.
The next year will be critical for the long term viability of the platform. The competition is hotting up even if that has not come to full public fruition yet.
Yes, bugs happen in all software, but these types of issues are not just âpar for the courseâ they are insight in to some fundamental problems. The popcorn is at the ready to see where we sit in 12 months time.
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Iâm not buying it.
So we are led to believe there are apps (plural) in secret development that are going to blow Zwift out the water yet none of us have heard of them?
And theyâll instantaneously kill off Zwift with its hundreds of thousands of subscribers that has built up up over the last 8 years.
And itâll be bug freeâŚ
Iâll not hold my breath.
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Iâm not sure anyone said that! Also you should sell your MySpace shares.
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I donât understand the MySpace comment?
MySpace was a âthingâ and was overtaken by competitors.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe with ANT+/BLE trainer connections & steering 
Shows you how much i know.
Thanks for the clarification.
Absolutely, but itâs not necessarily predictive.
Over the years, several alternatives to Facebook have appeared for example. Several of them better than Facebook (IMO), but theyâve failed to really challenge Facebook as while it has many huge faults, itâs the only game in town for a certain cohort of people. Similarly, TikTok is more attractive to Twitter for certain demographics and beating the latter handsomely in some areas; but Twitterâs still here and huge.
In terms of Zwift, there have been plenty of alternatives over the past 5 or more years. Some of them have found favour with some sections of the Zwift community (I recall several racers saying they preferred RGT). But none of them yet have really made inroads into attracting people away from Zwift. Maybe they all build up their own community of people who prefer them.
Iâve tried several myself, including RGT, Veloton/Virtupro, GTBike V, FulGaz, CVRcade (as well as The Sufferfest and TrainerRoad). I even have a current subscription to Rouvy.
But I keep coming back to Zwift because despite all its faults, for me personally itâs by far the best experience overall. Plenty of room for improvement, and subjective of course, but the graphics are the best, the ride feel is the best, the size of the community dwarfs any of the others Iâve tried (which are veritable wastelands by comparison; I log in and there are maybe 10 people on the route Iâm riding).
So while I fully accept that something better might be around the corner, just being better isnât enough. Itâll have to lure people away from Zwift or anything else if itâs really going to challenge.
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The people with the potential budget to compete with Zwift are the likes of Apple/ Mircosoft/ large gaming platforms and they would like a relatively quick return on investment, which will probably put them off, unless they are actually going for the Peloton market and accidently capture a slice of the Zwift market too.
The âeasy bitâ of Zwift, like any s/w platform is the front end, near enough all the complexity is in the backend/ server side, rather then the âobvious stuffâ.
Thatâs really not true. I would imagine Whoosh has access to significantly greater funds, for example. The next step up from Zwift is not Microsoft.
@Daren agree with your points but none of them counter my arguments above.
with regards to an open beta test system, is that not just very similar to the bug bounty program that was shelved?
Isnât an open beta system kind of what happens, just that everyone gets it with each update.
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I crawled out from under a rock just before Xmas to discover MyWhoosh had been an interesting freebie since around Easter '22.
However, the device minimum spec is pretty high, for example Adeno 640+ graphics on Android mobile, so it will run on my Poco F3 but not my Mi A2.
Tried it once in December doing an ERG workout, all going well until I got a call ~10secs before workout end , when I finished call workout had ended and not saved.
Went to try it the other day after the big update last week including Australia world, turbo and hrm paired, but when I turned the pedals there was no acknowlegement of any power so my avatar didnât move!
I think the biggest thing holding back turbo users from trying Zwift competitors is the âfearâ of having to ride alone or in tiny groups, compared to the likes of the current Tour De Zwift, where even on short routes you can often select a time to ride with 500+ others.
Yeah, Iâm not really trying to counter anything. I agree Zwift probably have problems in terms of the engine and everything from stems from that, the funding model probably doesnât have usersâ best interests at heart and likely places growth and VC exit above all else.
Racing itself was never in the original plan. We - the community - kinda forced that on Zwift by doing it anyway. So itâs not natively supported, as can be seen in aspects such as different people seeing different versions of who cross the line first, and spectators having to wait to hear the serverâs decision.
Various aspects of Zwift can absolutely be done better.
Whether anything comes along that not only does those things better, but does them better enough (or maybe at a lower price point) to tempt people to move remains to be seen. Inertia is a problem, particularly when people feel invested in a given platform ('cause theyâve got nice virtual gear, or a high level or friends they wonât want to leave behind etc.).
Iâd love to see a strong competitor. If nothing else it should focus minds at Zwift, and in the end we should all benefit from it whether we move or not.
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Not really. The bug bounty program was specifically (mostly) about racing and would have involved probably a fairly small number of people in purpose looking for vulnerabilities (or others discovering them by chance), the public beta would need a somewhat larger user base to be meaningful and would mainly consist of users doing normal user things with the software and reporting any irregularities.
still doing zwifts job though