Dynasty rankings for premium members only now?

[Dookmarriot]

I think it was a bad move too. I'm a subscriber and the rankings were one of the reasons for which I came to this site. I enjoyed the rankings and the podcast and the forums so then I decided to pony up. But how is someone who is just starting out suppose to get interested in DLF if they can't even see the rankings? I'll continue to be a subscriber but I think it will hurt DLF more in the long run than help them.

Very good point. I'm a firm believer that "money talks and b******* walks," so I have no problem paying. That said, the rankings were what led me to this site in the first place - it was the rest of the content that convinced me to go premium. I really want this site to be successful, and the hard sell we're getting lately makes me wonder if they're finding things tight. I know that I'd really miss this site and this community if they can't keep the lights on, so anything to push revenue is fine by me. But I do wonder if the rankings serve a better purpose as a "loss leader."

[henry1jg]

I personally don't sign up/pay for ANY site without having spent a few weeks checking everything out, most specifically articles, podcasts, scouting reports, and rankings. If you put everything behind a pay wall, then how can you convince people who are unfamiliar with your site to pony up $30?

That's the thing, most of the guys complaining have been around long enough to know what all is on the site, saw the multiple chances to get a discount on memebship and still didn't pull the trigger after using the site for a while, that's what I don't get.

If I were running the site, I would not be worried about people who know what the site has to offer, but still don't want to pay for the premium membership. I'd be worried about how I'm going to draw new members and get them to invest in premium. I imagine the site has a plan/idea, or at least I hope they do. I'm sure they'll start offering day passes or something of the sort. Owning any business means you often need to put your long term interests over your short term gains. I'm just curious to see what DLF has in store from here out.

[voiceofunreason]

Pay up or shut up. It isn't a lot of money for what DLF provides (especially when they give cheaper options like FanDuel or Black Friday sales), which includes;

Rankings
Content
Podcast
Forum

Nothing happens for free forever, as free isn't a viable business direction. Frankly, I'm happy to get the added insights on people who aren't willing to take the extra step on the hobby. Only increases the value of the subscription to me.

I totally respect that but for me I never read any of the content or listen to the podcasts. It was handy to have some more rankings but not enough for me to sign up.

[dlf_tomk]

That's very frustrating. As others have said that would have influenced my decision to buy a license over the weekend. Now I'll probably spend the cash on PFF instead.

[henry1jg]

That's very frustrating. As others have said that would have influenced my decision to buy a license over the weekend. Now I'll probably spend the cash on PFF instead.

Also another potentially unintended consequence of changing the guidelines of the pay wall. I wonder if maybe DLF will do another 50% off sale to try and calm people who feel slighted.

[patiloman13]

Yeah, I'm not the type to listen to podcasts either, and I got enough articles elsewhere for free. The rankings and forum are the only real things I was looking for here, and I don't know that 30 is worth it for just the rankings, until they make the forum pay as well. They do still have the promo for daily, though, so maybe I'll do that. I just hate daily so much...

[Adhoc90]

Hey, dont wanna hijack this thread but did anybody use that 50% code yesterday? i tried but it didnt work (with paypal). Any idea?

[Csl312]

I totally respect that but for me I never read any of the content or listen to the podcasts. It was handy to have some more rankings but not enough for me to sign up.

+1 here. I have enough time to follow the forums and that's about it most of the time, so can't justify paying for content I know I won't get to reading/listening to. A forum with this much traffic is probably supported fairly well by ads, and I do click them when something interesting pops up. I could be wrong about that, but it seems a reasonable assumption. The rankings are what originally brought me here, so I guess some of the traffic from me at least will shift to another site with rankings. It is not as if any of us use those rankings for more than a baseline to start moving players around anyway, so I don't think this change is enough to convince people who have not been paying for premium to suddenly sign up.

Regarding the cheaper premium options - just to play devils advocate a little. If anyone has previously been a subscriber here, it seems like those promotions are not available. The DFS promo is, but won't that work only once - and it has been going for a while.

[bonscott]

I feel mixed on it, I do sub but I get the rankings can also pull people in. An idea for them might be to show say the top 10 ranking for each category and then only show the rest for subs. FBG does this with some of their stuff.

But I think that it may be just a web site glitch right now, I can't see them making this switch mid-season. I'd see it more as a switch made after the SuperBowl.

Hey, dont wanna hijack this thread but did anybody use that 50% code yesterday? i tried but it didnt work (with paypal). Any idea?

I think the code was only good on Monday. As for PayPal, that didn't work for me (it was down a lot in general with the big Cyber Monday crush) but I was able to use the other payment option.

[Adhoc90]

Hey, dont wanna hijack this thread but did anybody use that 50% code yesterday? i tried but it didnt work (with paypal). Any idea?

I think the code was only good on Monday. As for PayPal, that didn't work for me (it was down a lot in general with the big Cyber Monday crush) but I was able to use the other payment option.

Hmm, thought i read here in the forum that there was a extention of the offer?! :-/

[MikeHoncho]

Personally I like the idea but not the actual execution. The rankings are what initially brought me and many of my league mates to the site since many of us were new to dynasty. I think this move will really limit a lot of the potential consumer views but that is just a feeling with no data to support it. Moving ADP or giving more up to date rankings in premium makes more sense but that is just my feelings on it.

[Cameron Giles]

Personally, I wouldn't pay any money to read fantasy football content. I don't think there's any real competitive edge you get from doing so either, though I won't knock the work people put in.

The ADP rankings are interesting, and good for showing who's trending and falling, but I find more often than not that there's a lot of faulty views on the player's pages when they're drafted. Also, the comments are frequently outdated. Despite that, the rankings were a big part of bringing me to the site and without it, I imagine prospective buyers will have nothing to be enticed with. They'll struggle with the initial stages of dynasty in terms of learning about values.

I think it's a good core service to offer, but I'm guessing subscriptions aren't up to par, and this is a decision made to force your hand.

[Irbir]

Had to happen the day after they offered a year of membership at half price, too. Sales would have boomed with those two things coinciding.

but DLF is not the only place there is for rankings (though it is the largest composition of rankings from writers that I've found).

Quite true, and frankly I'm less than impressed with the rankings on this site. I understand it's dynasty rankings, but they adjust way too slow for my liking and not all writers give feedback comments on why they rank the player the way they do. If DLF goes to that level of maintaining the rankings, then it might get me to ante up on top of the other content.

I'm a subscriber but totally agree with this. If you're going to have the rankings as part of the premium package, I hope DLF steps up their game in terms of making sure ALL writers update their rankings EVERY WEEK and PROVIDE COMMENTS on players. While I think in general the cost of the premium content is worth the price, the rankings as they are now are not worthy of being considered "premium."

[dynastyninja]

Personally, I wouldn't pay any money to read fantasy football content. I don't think there's any real competitive edge you get from doing so either, though I won't knock the work people put in.

The ADP rankings are interesting, and good for showing who's trending and falling, but I find more often than not that there's a lot of faulty views on the player's pages when they're drafted. Also, the comments are frequently outdated. Despite that, the rankings were a big part of bringing me to the site and without it, I imagine prospective buyers will have nothing to be enticed with. They'll struggle with the initial stages of dynasty in terms of learning about values.

I think it's a good core service to offer, but I'm guessing subscriptions aren't up to par, and this is a decision made to force your hand.

I very much agree with you.

[RGKID144]

This is honestly a wild disappointment for a long time DLF subscriber and poster. I had the premium membership for 4 years, and just finally didn't renew it for the first year, as I'm recently married and trying to cut back on spending. I can't imagine this is seen by any single person as "right" or "justifiable." Obviously, DLF needs to make ends meet which is understandable, but is going about it in the complete wrong direction.

Perhaps even more upsetting to me, is the fact that there have been multiple times in recent memory where DLF didn't post a new piece of content for 3-4 days at a time. Most recently in mid-November(a week before T day). I remember waking up for a few days in a row, hoping to read something from my favorite source for DLF content, and there was just no new article, or even fluff piece about a player. This was wildly concerning and frustrating.

I completely understand the need to get funds to continue running a successful website. I also would have no problem once again ponying up the 20 or so dollars for the membership if I deemed it acceptable. However, their first step needs to be getting people to read their FREE content, and once again building up a viewership. IMHO, their articles have been slightly lacking over the past few months. Things like "Daily Mailbag" as your one published piece after not posting an article for three days is a way to lose readers, not gain them. They need to be posting solid, premium content for their everyday, casual readers before they even THINK about asking people to spend 20 dollars on rankings.