Technology
Trade My Spin is building a business around used Peloton gear

Peloton has had one of the tumultuous half-decades in tech. The home fitness company has experienced a few of the industry’s biggest ups and downs in a dizzying sequence. This is the story of a high-profile startup that became the main focus of a cult following amongst influencers and fitness fanatics. A worldwide pandemic catapulted the brand to unprecedented heights before overinvestment, product recalls, mass layoffs, and executive departures brought it back all the way down to earth.
Peloton is within the red in mid-2024, but not out of the business. The company avoided a major liquidity crisis with a massive debt refinancing in late May. That marked the top of a month that also saw a 15% staff cut and the departure of CEO Barry McCarthy a little over two years after he took over from founder John Foley.
Peloton’s unique rollercoaster ride has had a wide selection of negative effects. Excitement peaked at the peak of the pandemic, but because the world began to reopen, sales fell. Some who got hooked at the peak of social distancing have remained loyal to the brand. But many others have lost that bond. Some churn is inevitable with any fitness offering, but those numbers have undoubtedly been exacerbated by the reopening of gyms and other alternative exercise options.
As a result, a lot of unused, expensive fitness equipment is taking over space in homes across America; they’re now “coat racks,” as a coworker recently dubbed her Peloton bike. A fast search of Facebook Marketplace reveals row after row of exercise bikes routinely priced around $300 to $500—a fraction of the worth of a latest model (around $1,500). For many once-enthusiastic owners, the equipment has turn into a pain. But for a pair of East Coast entrepreneurs, it’s a chance.
This Change my spin The origin story begins humbly, when current CEO Ari Kimmelfeld began on the lookout for a good deal on a used Peloton bike. As good as the costs were on Facebook and Craigslist, in comparison with buying latest from the manufacturer, the experience had its own problems.
“Buying something that big was a huge inconvenience,” Kimmelfeld, who was then working at Ernst & Young’s strategy consulting arm EY-Parthenon, tells TechCrunch. “Five hundred dollars was a lot of money, and meeting up with a stranger and giving him money for a piece of equipment that you can’t really test. And I live in New York. Moving something like that from a Brooklyn apartment to Manhattan is tough. And there are no guarantees.”
Local logistics
Kimmelfeld began piloting what would turn into Trade My Spin last yr by collecting and selling used Peloton gear. The offering was essentially DIY logistics, removing the friction of shopping for and selling used exercise equipment. It was a conversation with Joey Benjamini that transformed the one-man operation into a profitable business.
Benjamini has built a logistics network based on cooperation with contractors Collectible classicsHis Pennsylvania-based classic automotive dealership relies on drivers to deliver vehicles sold primarily through the used-car marketplace Bring a Trailer.
“Logistics is the most complicated and important part of this business—and the biggest barrier to entry,” Benjamini tells TechCrunch. “We have a database of 1099 vendors who deliver for us. We’re constantly growing a network of drivers who know our company and our processes. Once a driver is trained, we send them out to pick up the bikes. It’s very simple.”
The latest team began working on the Trade My Spin website before looking for funding. The site stays easy, whilst the inventory has expanded to incorporate Peloton treadmills, rowers and a number of accessories. The Buy button displays a bustling marketplace for the service, while Sell displays a form for the equipment you would like to sell. With the positioning up and running, the young company raised a small amount of seed money to scale operations.
Interview with Peloton
The startup has also had multiple conversations with Peloton since its official launch in March. Trade My Spin’s primary focus within the conversations is that its relationship is symbiotic, not parasitic. At first glance, it’s easy to see why Peloton is likely to be hostile toward the corporate.
Seen as a zero-sum game, every used bike sold represents a potential lack of a latest bike sale. While it’s true that keeping bikes in circulation is a net positive on the sustainability front, Peloton shareholders are undoubtedly trying to the sales figure for change.
The math changes, nonetheless, while you consider that Peloton’s ultimate goal is to be a content company that sells equipment, not the opposite way around. Rather than simply selling used bikes as a missed sale on a latest one, Trade My Spin claims that each bike taken out of circulation is one less subscription to Peloton’s class content platform.
“Every bike we take is from someone who isn’t using it,” Benjamini says. “If someone isn’t using the bike, they’re not using the subscription. Peloton is a subscription service. It’s $44 a month. Every time we flip a bike—and we’ve flipped thousands of bikes—they make $500 a year.”
The relationship would little doubt have been different had Peloton been more proactive about moving its own used gear. Ultimately, Trade My Spin stepped in to fill this underserved gap out there.
New turn

Trade My Spin has built a logistics network that permits for same-day or next-day delivery in most major cities within the continental U.S. More distant locations can take as much as five days to satisfy an order, which is still faster than the three to 5 days it takes Peloton to process an order.
In the short term, expansion includes adding more fitness equipment to Trade My Spin’s buying and selling options. In the long term, the corporate desires to leverage its growing network of contractors to incorporate buying and selling all forms of bulky items. Trade My Spin will likely need an extra round of funding to attain this.
“We want to transform,” Benjamini says. “We’re going from where we are now and building a large-scale market for large items with logistics. That’s the game plan, and no one else is going to do it. There’s a barrier to entry and a moat around the business when it comes to drivers.”
Technology
Why the new Porn Law Anti-Revenge disturbs experts on freedom

Proponents of privacy and digital rights increase the alarms over the law, which many would expect to support: federal repression of pornography of revenge and deep cabinets generated by AI.
The newly signed Act on Take IT Down implies that the publishing of unjustified clear photos-vigorous or generated AI-I gives platforms only 48 hours to follow the request to remove the victim or face responsibility. Although widely praised as an extended win for victims, experts also warned their unclear language, loose standards for verification of claims, and a decent compatibility window can pave the way for excessive implementation, censorship of justified content and even supervision.
“Large -scale model moderation is very problematic and always ends with an important and necessary assessment speech,” said India McKinney, Federal Director at Electronic Frontier Foundation, a corporation of digital rights.
Internet platforms have one 12 months to determine a means of removing senseless intimate images (NCII). Although the law requires that the request to be removed comes from victims or their representatives, he only asks for a physical or electronic signature – no photo identifier or other type of verification is required. This might be geared toward reducing barriers for victims, but it could possibly create the possibility of abuse.
“I really want to be wrong in this, but I think there will be more requests to take photos of Queer and trance people in relationships, and even more, I think it will be consensual porn,” said McKinney.
Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), a co-person of the Take IT Down Act, also sponsored the Safety Act for youngsters, which puts a burden on platforms to guard children from harmful online content. Blackburn said he believed Content related to transgender individuals It is harmful to children. Similarly, the Heritage Foundation – conservative Think Tank behind the 2025 project – also has he said that “keeping the content away from children protects children.”
Due to the responsibility with which they encounter platforms, in the event that they don’t take off the image inside 48 hours of receiving the request: “By default it will be that they simply take it off without conducting an investigation to see if it is NCII or whether it is another type of protected speech, or whether it is even important for the person who submits the application,” said McKinney.
Snapchat and Meta said that they support the law, but none of them answered TechCrunch’s request for more information on how they’d check if the person asking for removal is a victim.
Mastodon, a decentralized platform, which hosts his own flagship server, to which others can join, told Techcrunch that he could be inclined to remove if he was too difficult to confirm the victim.
Mastodon and other decentralized platforms, comparable to blues or pixfed, could be particularly exposed to the cold of the 48-hour removal rule. These networks are based on independently supported servers, often run by non -profit organizations or natural individuals. Under the law, FTC may treat any platform that is just not “reasonably consistent” with demands of removal as “unfair or deceptive action or practice” – even when the host is just not a business subject.
“It’s disturbing on his face, but especially when he took the FTC chair unprecedented Steps to politicize The agency and clearly promised to make use of the agency’s power to punish platforms and services on ideologicalIn contrast to the rules, the basics, “cyberspace initiative, a non -profit organization dedicated to the end of pornography of revenge, she said in statement.
Proactive monitoring
McKinney predicts that the platforms will start moderating content before distribution, so in the future they’ve fewer problematic posts.
Platforms already use artificial intelligence to observe harmful content.
Kevin Guo, general director and co -founder of the content detection startup, said that his company cooperates with web platforms to detect deep materials and sexual materials of kids (CSAM). Some of the Hive clients are Reddit, Giphy, Vevo, BlueSky and Bereal.
“In fact, we were one of the technology companies that supported this bill,” said Guo Techcrunch. “This will help solve some quite important problems and force these platforms to take more proactive solutions.”
The HIVE model is software as a service, so starting doesn’t control how the platforms use their product to flag or delete content. But Guo said that many shoppers insert the API Hive interface when sent to monitoring before anything is distributed to the community.
Reddit spokesman told Techcrunch that the platform uses “sophisticated internal tools, processes and teams for solving and removal”. Reddit also cooperates with the NON -SWGFL organization in an effort to implement the Stopncia tool, which scans live traffic seeking matches with a database of known NCII and removes accurate fittings. The company didn’t share how it is going to be sure that the person asking for removal is a victim.
McKinney warns that this kind of monitoring can expand to encrypted messages in the future. Although the law focuses on public or semi -public dissemination, it also requires the platforms “removing and making reasonable efforts to prevent” senseless intimate images from re -translating. He claims that this will likely encourage proactive scanning of all content, even in encrypted spaces. The law doesn’t contain any sculptors for encrypted services of encrypted messages, comparable to WhatsApp, Signal or IMessage.
Meta, Signal and Apple didn’t answer TechCrunch for more details about their plans for encrypted messages.
Wider implications of freedom of speech
On March 4, Trump provided a joint address to the congress, wherein he praised the Take It Down act and said he couldn’t wait to sign it.
“And I also intend to use this bill for myself if you don’t mind,” he added. “There is nobody who is treated worse than I do online.”
While the audience laughed at the comment, not everyone considered it a joke. Trump was not ashamed of suppressing or retarding against unfavorable speech, no matter whether it’s the mainstream marking “enemies of individuals” Except for Associated Press from the oval office despite the court order or Financing from NPR and PBS.
Trump administration on Thursday Barred Harvard University From the reception of foreign students, the escalation of the conflict, which began after Harvard refused to follow Trump’s demands to make changes to his curriculum and eliminate, amongst others, content related to Dei. In retaliation, Trump froze federal funds at Harvard and threatened to repeal the status of the tax exemption from the university.
“At a time when we see that school councils are trying to prohibit books and see that some politicians very clearly deal with the types of content that people do not want to ever see, regardless of whether it is a critical theory of breed, or information about abortion or information about climate change …” McKinney said.
(Tagstotransate) Censorship
Technology
PO clarous Director General Zoom also uses AI avatar during a quarterly connection

General directors at the moment are so immersed in artificial intelligence that they send their avatars to cope with quarterly connections from earnings as a substitute, a minimum of partly.
After AI Avatar CEO CEO appeared on the investor’s conversation firstly of this week, the final director of Zoom Eric Yuan also followed them, also Using his avatar for preliminary comments. Yuan implemented his non -standard avatar via Zoom Clips, an asynchronous company video tool.
“I am proud that I am one of the first general directors who used the avatar in a call for earnings,” he said – or fairly his avatar. “This is just one example of how Zoom shifts the limits of communication and cooperation. At the same time, we know that trust and security are necessary. We take seriously the content generated AI and build strong security to prevent improper use, protect the user’s identity and ensure that avatars are used responsibly.”
Yuan has long been in favor of using avatars at meetings and previously said that the corporate goals to create Digital user twins. He just isn’t alone on this vision; The CEO of transcript -powered AI, apparently, trains its own avatar Share the load.
Meanwhile, Zoom said he was doing it Avatar non -standard function available To all users this week.
(Tagstranslat) meetings AI
Technology
The next large Openai plant will not be worn: Report

Opeli pushed generative artificial intelligence into public consciousness. Now it might probably develop a very different variety of AI device.
According to WSJ reportThe general director of Opeli, Altman himself, told employees on Wednesday that one other large product of the corporate would not be worn. Instead, it will be compact, without the screen of the device, fully aware of the user’s environment. Small enough to sit down on the desk or slot in your pocket, Altman described it each as a “third device” next to MacBook Pro and iPhone, in addition to “Comrade AI” integrated with on a regular basis life.
The preview took place after the OpenAI announced that he was purchased by IO, a startup founded last 12 months by the previous Apple Joni Ive designer, in a capital agreement value $ 6.5 billion. I will take a key creative and design role at Openai.
Altman reportedly told employees that the acquisition can ultimately add 1 trillion USD to the corporate conveyorsWearing devices or glasses that got other outfits.
Altman reportedly also emphasized to the staff that the key would be crucial to stop the copying of competitors before starting. As it seems, the recording of his comments leaked to the journal, asking questions on how much he can trust his team and the way rather more he will be able to reveal.
(Tagstotransate) devices
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