It’s not even per bike, it’s per household. If you get the tread the subscription carries there too. So for $40 you get bike, bike boot camp, treadmill, outdoor running, running boot camp, HIIT, strength training, calisthenics, yoga, and meditation classes. Compare that to something like soul cycle at ~$30 per class or Orange theory at ~$200/mo/person

Or Apple fitness @ $10/month (per person).

Apple One is $30 for an entire family. That includes full music subscription with HD audio, TV+, games, 1Tb storage and fitness+.

AFAICT Fitness+ is more of a competitor to an app like Shred, which I just found less sticky. I'll pay more for a service I'll actually use.

Or YouTube fitness videos @ $0/month (per 1.5 people)

But you don't need a Peloton bike to use their app...I bought a non-Peloton bike and pay $14.30/month to subscribe to the Peloton app (which I run on the big screen TV I already have in the room with the bike)

I don't need or want any interactive features that the bike provides, especially at a $25 premium to what I pay now.

does come with a 24 inch (Android) tablet.

When I bought my bike, I saw that 24 inch screen built-in to the Peloton as a drawback, my bike has a simple 4 line LCD bike computer, which I expect to run indefinitely, but it never needs software updates and if it breaks, it costs $200 to replace. And I don't have to plug it into the wall, it runs for a year on AA batteries.

I link my bike to my watch so have all of my workouts in once place -- spinning bike, running, outdoor biking, etc.

As someone who occasionally ride's my partner's peloton, I am BEGGING them to just let me watch Netflix or something on the screen. I have to jimmyrig an iPad over the huge screen because they won't let me just use the screen how I want.

It's just an Android tablet, and it appears to be rootable: https://www.reddit.com/r/pelotoncycle/wiki/index/howto/root

Not sure how recent those instructions are.

this makes how locked down it is even more ridiculous.

commercially available single purpose computers are such a scam

Yes, they're an environmental disaster.

It’s with this mindset that I went the Zwift route with an iPad and my own bike. But boy is it hard to get everything to work together! With peloton you could just climb on and start pedalling. With Zwift there’s always a sensor that won’t connect at first. There’s a reason these tightly integrated systems are popular. I wonder if peloton would be this seamless if the tablet was open. Too many configurations make things messy for the typical consumer.

Without installing or rooting anything, if you tap the correct part of the about screen it pulls up a browser and you can go to netflix.com (there's instructions floating around for this, I can't remember the exact incantation)

I have a Peloton and a Tonal. The Tonal monthly cost is more, but it's far superior to Peloton. Tonal does hide some feature behind the paywall which is a bit sketchy. All said, both devices are worth the $100/month combined expense, and my health improvements I've achieved has been incredible for me. This is all achievable with other stuff, but my schedule usually has me working out after 11pm. And I have 2 other family members that use both.