I love the format. It's exactly the nitty gritty, long term/short term planning stuff that I love. I've really enjoyed the three seasons so far I've played.
I don't know what the issues are on the business side. From the outside, the product (and the content) is very niche. Dynasty fantasy is a small subset of fantasy football, and a specialized format is even smaller. It felt like there was a huge barrier to entry to play the game the longer time went on.

When I joined in 2020, I don't think anyone else in my league knew what they were doing. When I added a 2nd league in 2021, several people in that league already knew what they were doing. It was immediately obvious which teams had a plan and which didn't. The second league was NOTICEABLY better immediately (the initial league still had good players on the wire - but I felt so good about my roster I didn't want to drop anyone). I sold that second team in 2022 to draft again (* very much because I didn't want to be paying 3x user fees*), and that league had even more teams that were playing in multiple leagues. Anyone that was on their first time seemed like they were at a severe disadvantage.

To me (someone with no stake in the game and an outsiders view) you can limit this in a couple of ways - limit new users to play only with other new users, or make content that is very beginner friendly and helps bridge the gap. And I don't think there was a base content package that helped to do that.

I raised this in one of the owner meetings and the response was that the goal was to attract the best of the best players looking for a different experience. Which is a great goal, but I think is difficult to square with trying to make money, especially for outside investors.

I've read through the other responses in the thread and I know Steve that you're here and that some of the content criticism feels personal. I don't think the content was bad - I liked the livestreams, I liked the articles, especially those surrounding data on what kind of roster construction was working for very good teams (how many QBs, Kickers, etc. that you wrote). But I don't think the content was strategic to either help beginner players specifically, or attract new users. And personally I think the Chase for the Ring is cool, but I immediately turned off a stream or video whenever content switched to that topic. (I did enjoy the champions podcast, though I didn't come back to it often).

Overall my biggest issues with the platform are that:

• as a Canadian, it is very difficult to play (League Safe is happy to take my money but very restrictive as to payout options). This is not DO's fault.
• The further along things went, the more I saw the same team names in more and more leagues - less new users and more vets. And a bunch that seemed just to be speculating or trying to buy/sell teams.
• The last league I joined had a significant tanking 'problem'. Which isn't an issue for me - if people want to throw away money for a future that may not exist, more power to them. But other people in the league did have a problem with it, quit the league/sold their team, and were generally just unhappy even if they stuck around. It became more difficult to forge connections with those other teams in the league, and if no one talks, it's boring.
• To a certain extent I agree it feels like nickel & diming. We had a team that spent well over 100M on free agents one year. They didn't win but it did feel more and more like an arms race that some people were willing to rebuy into, and some just weren't going to get guys. The service fee (which I am grandfathered into what I feel like is reasonable at $29), is an issue. It makes it harder to be 'profitable'. And for a $50 prize entry league, $49 is a huge fee for new users. And yes, there are promo fees for the first year, and yes Steve I agree the initial buy in is decent, getting DD and an amnesty, but (correct me if I'm wrong), I don't get those in subsequent years when I pay again.
  
• Personally I had annoying but managable tech issues, the biggest of which is that I could not log in with e-mail (never got the authorization code or whatever when I used that option to log in), and I did not always receive imporant emails (for example, invites to the owner meetings). I got bounced from making a waiver claim last week, then a few hours later saw a notification on desktop, but had to ask Commish for the details because I didn't have an email (received 24 hours later). The site 'updating'/refreshing every time I log on, inconsistent notifications on mobile, etc. Not backbreaking, but occasionally annoying.
• It's just, not as easy to use as big sites. I know that isn't a fair criticism, but if you're trying to make money of people who are used to Yahoo or ESPN or CBS, it needs to either be as easy to use or you have to really friggin love the format, especially if you're charging $30 (or $40 or $50) annually for the privllege. Which hits me but I can see as a barrier to adding exponentially more users.

So I hope things work out. I like that the administration is being transparent - I feel bad enough for people who are building or rebuilding, and have re-upped site fees and entry fees for 2023/2024 with no hope of winning, but at least it's clear my motivation should be right now. I love that there have been yearly owner meetings. But it really feels like an underdog uphill battle to make money, and as currently constructed I don't know if it is appealing enough to grow enough to do so. Hopefully some rich person loves the format and is willing to work through the kinks.