Kudos, leaderboards, QOMs: how fitness app Strava became a religion

You’ll create lifelong relationships with people you never thought you would have, and you’ll push each other through your hardest day. As the saying goes, ‘iron sharpens iron.’” And Joshua recognizes the impact community has had on his running journey: “Some of my best memories have been made in the sport from club, elementary, middle school, high

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Strava, on the other hand, introduced an entirely new proof mechanism: Proof-of-physical-activity. By using your phone’s GPS sensor (or a 3rd-party fitness tracker), users can actually prove how much and fast they ran or cycled. In contrast to Instagram photos, Strava’s proof mechanism is a lot harder to fake (though there are exceptions).

Anyone who runs enough to, say, pick up a book about how to sustain more running likely attaches part of their identity to running. That’s not a bad thing! It is okay to love the part of ourselves that is committed to running and be fascinated by the way our body moves through space. Acknowledging that identity helps us commit to the work that runn

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If people are spending billions of dollars per year to look different in a game where you mostly shoot each other, how much will they spend to look different in a game where you also get to show off how healthy of a person you’re being?