Peloton announces $95 "used equipment activation fee" | Hacker News Reader

Peloton announces $95 "used equipment activation fee"

arstechnica.com

12 pointscebert11 comments

Discussion (114 points, 23 hours ago, 159 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41322266

This seems to be happening more and more, or I am just noticing it more. Can't it be automated?

It’s automated if you submit a link which has already been submitted in the last (I think?) 12 hours, it just gives another upvote to the previous submission. Beyond that time window it treats it as a new submission. I think that window should be expanded a bit but there’s no perfect solution here since occasionally we do want to just discuss the same thing again.

Why would you do this when getting the user to buy subscription is the goal?

If anything it should be using carrots instead of sticks. Make the new user create an account and then give them a free trial. Show them why they want to be subscribed.

Who is the CEO and why aren’t they fired?

Well they probably figure if you bought a used peloton, you did so because you’ve decided to subscribe, in which case they don’t need to convince you of anything. It does seem scummy but I get the financial logic behind it

You can also think of it taking a fixed chunk out of the resale price and claiming it for themselves. Assuming everyone buying a used Peloton knows about the fee.

Right, this decision devalued everyone's purchased hardware by at a minimum the value of the fee, but likely much more. I simply wouldn't consider one knowing about that fee, reducing the pool of purchasers further.

This part baffles me though because I would think that reducing the resale value would make it more likely for the product to end up in a landfill rather than in the hands of a new subscriber.

It’s just a randomwared bike at this point. Fucking useless

I’d forgotten about Peloton. Is that still a thing?

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