Strava declares war on scrapers ahead of IPO
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Strava is restricting public data access and introducing a $11.99/month flat fee for API developers to combat unauthorized AI scraping ahead of its IPO. The company will require authentication to view previously public data like profiles and club listings, and plans to retire some API endpoints with a 90-day grace period. CEO Michael Martin cited performance degradation from aggressive AI crawlers, specifically calling out Perplexity for routing scraping through aggregators to evade blocks. Strava has refused data licensing deals with AI labs and is adding MCP support to give it more structured control over data sharing. The move draws comparisons to Reddit's 2024 API crackdown, though Strava is betting a flat fee — rather than per-call pricing — will preserve its developer ecosystem.
