Any decent manufacturer could build an minimalist adjustable single-speed trainer bike for under $150 bucks.
Probably. But then I can’t look down on other people if it’s that cheap.
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Maybe they’re playing the ‘sunken cost’ angle? If I paid $2000 for a Peloton I’d be hard pressed to let it gather dust, not least because my wife would give me endless grief about it 
So I’d be paying that subscription for years and years even if I didn’t really want to anymore, and use it at a minimum half-heartedly every now and then.
It’s the same reason why buying shiny new bike parts propelled me through motivation lows in my early years of cycling, before it became an unquestionable habit… Can’t upgrade from a Tacx Vortex to a Kickr, then let the Kickr gather dust
That’s probably B2B SaaS.
Consumer SaaS churn is much higher.
The average monthly churn rate for a Saas company is 3-8% , and the average annual churn rate is 32-50%.
Churn Rate vs Retention Rate: How to Calculate These SaaS KPIs | Woopra.
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Activist investor, Blackwell, now pushing for PTON to be sold and CEO to be removed. Doubt it will result in anything, but hope it does - interested in the valuation discovery exercise.
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r/wallstreetbets says that there should be a new PTON tagline: “Making the world better, one husband at a time”
Nate,
Yes - I was referencing a B2B churn rate, as I haven’t seen B2C since the late '90s.
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More bad news for Peloton….although I have to say I am quite shocked by how large their apparel business actually is. $150M is nothing to sneeze at.
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There’s something weird about home-spin people. Gym spin people can avoid the upfront costs and make small monthly payments - often with no commitment. I get wanting to workout at home. Especially now. But I do not get wanting to commit to a stationary bike. “I like working hard and pedaling in general but I don’t enjoy fresh air, sunshine, or the sensation of speed.”
I know everyone here (including me) spends time riding indoors but how many of started indoors and got hooked on cycling without riding outdoors? Zero percent? We fell in love with the sport, actually identify as cyclists, and then added indoor riding to work around darkness and bad weather. Even when we choose indoors for no other reason that to complete a structured workout, the goal is never to be faster inside is it? It’s to make us faster the next time we are riding outside.
um…I did.
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Me too. Started on Peloton, actually.
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Plenty of people started in spin classes and went on to become cyclists.
But your mistake is thinking that Peloton members think of themselves as cyclists. The vast majority don’t…they are “exercisers” or “fitness enthusiasts” or whatever term they want to use.
there is very little overlap between Peloton users and cyclists…the only thing that they share is a similarity in exercise modality.
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And stretchy exercise clothes
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And TR won’t even sell us T-Shirts and water bottles!!!
Could probably lower legacy pricing and hire all those extra developers in one go.
Thanks and I’ll show myself out…
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After a long time off (kids, job requiring travel), restarted in 2014 because having lost 30 pounds walking with my dog I had plateaued on time & calorie burn. Started doing spin class twice a week at the gym. Made friends with a guy that invited me to ride on the metro bike trail, and that got me hooked on riding outside for the second time in my life. FWIW I spend as little as possible riding indoors, the weather is nice here in NorCal and there is a large network of bike lanes and paved trails to ride on.
Spoke with one of my Peloton addicted neighbors last week, she loves her Peloton Bike+ and fitness classes, and would never ride on the road. A friend that only rides Peloton for general fitness, he lives adjacent to the bike trail and can ride over 60 miles without any cars, but he doesn’t ride outside. My brother-in-law lives in a gated golf community, more golf carts on the street than cars, but he drives (golf cart) 1 mile to the gym and warms up on an exercise bike. 
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mind blown 
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I just saw rollers and was like, “10 quid says I can do that too”
Got hooked on indoors since. Branched out to cycling elsewhere etc but I definitely started indoors and do enjoy both.
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But your mistake is thinking that Peloton members think of themselves as cyclists.
We (ppl here on TR) identify as cyclists - (implicitly saying they do not. )
Not certain what your point is here…you were talking about Peloton users, not TR users.
But that post just reinforces my point…TR users identify as cyclists, Peloton members do not.
Agreed.
This was probably true in the early days of Peloton and perhaps as recently as pre-pandemic. But this single characterization is far from an accurate depiction of Peloton users today. Many strong cyclists choose the Peloton experience over TR (including a couple of outdoor cycling 4.0 friends of mine).
[Food for thought]: The The Peloton user base is between 2 and 3 orders of magnitude larger that the TR user base. Consider that a some non-0 % of those were already strong outdoor cyclists. The resulting # is likely larger than the entire TR user base.
If you want to experience yourself, take one of Matt Wilpers’ classes and see where you end up on the leaderboard - perhaps not as high as you might hope (unless you are a 4.0-5.0+ rider). I think you may concluded that these are not all just stationary training riders.