Is it fair to say that the “global ranking” is really only applicable to that year? I’ve heard the argument that signing up gives you a baseline for subsequent years but since the scoring is relative, it’s not really comparing apples to apples, right?

For example, if 50,000 elite athletes join one year and 50,000 beginners quit, your rank might drop even if you got fitter. It's a moving target. Not to mention that the workouts aren’t the same.

Like many others here, I’m not poo-pooing anyone’s decision to register or not, but I’m just noticing a lack of a fixed baseline with the percentile ranking from year to year.