Garmin has revealed plans to place more features behind the paywall it calls Connect+ or Connect Plus. Despite facing public criticism for announcing the service, Garmin's CEO insists that the response from early adopters has been positive enough to expand the service to future' premium offerings', possibly like the rumoured Forerunner 970.https://www.notebookcheck.net/Garmin-officially-confirms-new-features-will-be-hidden-behind-paywall.1012624.0.html
strava did the same and i used other services. well, moving on
This will only drive Apple Watch sales number up.
When will these companies understand that their major money maker is the device itself and not trying to add subscriptions on top of it? Fitbit tried the same thing only for them to end up disappearing from the map.
Subscriptions are more lucrative since those provide a constant stream of revenue. Investors love them since potential revenue is not tied to new hardware that might flop because of multitude of reasons.
It sucks but subscriptions are here to stay.
Quote from: anan on May 09, 2025, 10:23:22It sucks but subscriptions are here to stay.
It sucks more for them than for me as I simply won't buy the crap they sell, and ggwp. One less customer for them, more money for me. Everyone's happy.
What a joke as an owner of fenix 5/6/7 who has had no luck with BT connectivity and seen the watch just get buggier I won't be bothered. they killed this fanboy
I've bought the Fenix series for a number of years now and I've held back from the 7 & 8 due to lack of game changing features. The price of these devices are becoming ridiculous and with paywalled services on the horizon, I'm going to jump ship. The Corps Vertix series seem to match my requirements. Bye bye Garmin.
Then make price of the watch half at max. Cant imagine pay £1000 for watch and be able to use for full extend only with subscription. No thank you. Just wanted to buy F8 51mm but not anymore. Being happy with 3HR cost me 350 brand new then 6xdc 650 thats about max.
Quote from: sunkione on May 12, 2025, 11:31:36Then make price of the watch half at max. Cant imagine pay £1000 for watch and be able to use for full extend only with subscription.
That's a good and perfectly reasonable expectation, but it is, sadly, not ever going to happen as the sole reason to start with the subscription junk is pure greed and nothing else.
I really like Garmin watches, well the Instinct lineup mainly, but it's difficult to justify buying (a new) one from a company that once used to be extremely user-friendly, yet turned to be a complete polar opposite now.
Let your wallets speak for you.
No that G-Shock has added the features that I bought the Garmin Instinct for, I suspect that my next work Wichita will have me back with Casio.