I don't know if Peleton makes good ones, but Precor certainly does. That said, it was weird of Peleton to overpay for a company that makes expensive fitness equipment purchased largely by gyms, who probably aren't purchasing much of anything these days.
It's like buying an iPad pro and expecting yourself to find an interest in illustration.
Sometimes people watch a movie that makes them cry and they decide to learn guitar just like the girl with cancer in movie.
Or they decided to buy a really expensive bike and now this is a big motivator for them to ride everyday.
Or sometimes people live in a cold place, they are shy and have feelings of inadequacy and won't feel good in a gym where they think people will judge them.
Or maybe they are from a minority and kind of don't feel welcome at the only gym in the backwards small town they live.
Of course this is a personal anecdote, but I found in my life plenty of people who were never motivated enough to go to a gym, to learn surfing, to practice jiu-jitsu until they become.
Change the environment, nudge a factor here and there, tweak an incentive here, and maybe you just did enough to motivate someone.
For me, I hate the cold more than I like snowboarding, and I don't really have the money to invest in equipment. If I loved snowboarding enough having had a very good experience initially, perhaps through one of those variables that you mentioned being tweaked, then I'd find a way to do it by sourcing used gear or w/e, but ultimately I just don't like it enough atm to do that. Therefore I'm very much in favor of tweaking anything to explore a new activity, but I'm doubtful that more than a tiny percentage of people stick with it for more than a month because they really wanted to play cancer-girl's song. It wasn't an innate drive to pursue an art, it was an external momentary source of novelty, akin to setting a New Years resolution.
Likewise with ice-skating or something. If you feel genuinely driven to do that, but you don't like skating indoors at the local rink, you'll try and do it regardless of your equipment, and try to find an outdoor rink, or maybe a frozen lake, or pond, or you'll be sad if you can't because you live somewhere too warm with a culture that doesn't support it, or you'll vacation to somewhere colder. I always recommend not trying to find something fun that you don't find fun, but instead just exploring many options horizontally to eventually find something you do find fun. Great, you don't like the gym, try climbing, try hiking, try swimming, try running, whatever. Then think about spending $$ as you see fit to support the thing you're actually compelled to do.
It's perfectly reasonable to believe that there must be people for which treadmills are incredible.
I like riding and running outside, sometimes really early in the morning when the sea is good for surfing. But I can understand people who would consider the few miles I have to run or ride to the beach utterly boring to ride or run a few days a week.
Other than the different asshole drivers trying to kill me from time to time, there isn't much variety in my outside rides tbh. I can understand someone preferring riding a Peloton bike under nice air-conditioning, with their favorite music in the background, under the watchful eyes of their cat, while watching they kids playing outside.
Genuinely curious as I've (in my limited experience) only ever seen them intermittently used a handful of times and then forgotten about. My dad used to buy up used ones for a pittance for their motors which he used for hobby projects, and most of the time they looked unused except for some dust or dry rotting.
Feature-wise, a good treadmill supports inclination of several degrees in the 'up' direction and at least a couple of degrees downward. Obviously the controls need to be responsive and easy to work with while running. And the whole thing needs to be designed without forehead-slapping engineering errors like the ability (much less the tendency) to pull objects beneath the deck. If the belt is exposed at the rear without a cover or guard of some kind, as was notoriously done by Peloton, that would be an example of how not to do it.
Basically, any treadmill that doesn't suck is going to end up weighing a few hundred pounds and costing several thousand dollars. It will be designed with gym use in mind, rather than primarily for home users.
I had a Precor C964 for several years, but sold it when I moved. I eventually replaced it with a similar model from the same company (TRM 425), and I'd say those two models are examples of very good commercial-grade treadmills that will last more or less forever in a home environment. Frankly I liked the older model a bit better, as it had simpler controls with less lag.
