Do you want a faster version of nbawowy and how much would you be willing to pay for it?

[Evan Zamir]

Many of you have probably noticed that the site runs slowly on days with big slates and lots of injuries. To make it worse, everyone seems to get in around the same time before DFS sites lock rosters.

The only way to improve this situation is to put the database on a faster server. To do that costs money. Money I haven't been willing to spend since I run the site freely. 

What I am thinking about doing is running the site for a month on a faster server. I can afford to do that for one month to see if this helps. During that month of "real world" testing, we'll see how much better the performance is and re-visit the idea of doing paying subscription. 

Assuming performance issues can be figured out (and presumably, the site can run significantly faster than is possible now), I'd like to know how much you would be willing to pay for this service. Monthly subscription during the season (i.e. 6 months). Let me know in the replies.

[Randy Newsom]

Evan, long time listener, first time responder here. My name is Randy Newsom and I love what you've created both with the site and with the group here. 

Truth be told, and I'm sure a lot of people on this list aren't going to love me saying this, you could charge something right now for what your site does. I'm not one of the DFS guys, but your site is still incredibly valuable to even a "lay person" like me who is just interested in understanding what's actually going on in the NBA at a microlevel. As such, I'm all for any improvements you make and would likely pay a reasonable rate (say $5-10/month for access or a one-time fee). I pay fees for lesser information databases throughout the various sports. I realize that you didn't start this site or this group to make money, but if a small fee helps you make the site more efficient and thus the proliferation of the information better, then it's a small price to pay in my mind.

Further, for the DFS crew, it might be better for you all if there was a small fee. I imagine most of the people in this group probably do well in that arena, whereas the information is available to anyone who has ever stumbled upon your website, heard a friend talk about, etc. I have to expect that the profitable players would understand that a small fee is worthwhile for the information on your site and those who aren't profitable probably wouldn't spend the money. Additionally, the ones who wouldn't spend the money are probably the ones who slow up the server and are likely the types who also don't do the real deep digging that helps set Wowy apart. I see that as a Win-Win. While I think information should be available to all, if the cost isn't prohibitive, I think it's merely a barrier to help out those in the community looking to find the actual signal rather than those who are merely trying to cut through the noise (and I do believe there is a difference). 

Sorry for way too long of a response, but I'm a huge fan of what you've created and wanted to give you an honest answer. 

Best Regards,

RN

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[Jacob Gibbs]

I agree with Randall. I'd be willing to pay like $10 a month for a well functioning site.

[BigMike]

$9.99 would be great. Free is fun until demand dictates otherwise. Be sure to use a pay system where we could use auto pay subscription. PayPal if it doesn't cost you a lot.

[BigMike]

Also, I couldn't even get a query to run yesterday. Would have happily been a subscriber to prevent that.

[Evan Zamir]

Thanks for the input guys.

I put some new indexes on the site to try to make it faster. If you notice a jump (or dropoff) in performance the next few days (especially during heavy slates near lineup locks) please give me feedback either here or on twitter.

[magicfaninTN]

Lurker, never posted.

But before I lose access to the site by being too quiet, I thought I'd pipe up.

I'd like to see the site have more options for display, formatting, sorting, etc if the price is this high. Not a DFS user.  I think the layout and accessibility is wonderful for a free site.  As is, I might consider something like even a $2.99/$3.99 month.  How much is a new server going to run?

On 1/5/2016 1:53 PM, BigMike wrote:

[Harrison Brown]

While we're mentioning features we'd be interested in... the one thing that I've found myself wishing for more than anything is an nbawowy API. Obviously this would be considerably more work for Evan than a faster server, but I'd be willing to pay a good bit more for it. I'm not really a DFS guy and mostly use the site for research, so I'm not all that concerned with speed as long as I'm doing one query at a time, but being able to query it via API would vastly expand the kinds of research I could do.

Harrison

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[rebkell]

It's probably not something you want to do, but have you considered putting up some ads. You can control the layout and keep them unobtrusive, I don't think anybody would mind them and with the traffic this place gets, I suspect you could make a decent recurring income and then everybody that wants to use the site will continue to use it.  Just a thought.

[Kirk B]

You guys should run a paypal donation campaign and advertise it on the main page. I'm hesitant to subscribe to another DFS service just because I already have too many, but if you had a way to donate I'd be more than happy to contribute, especially after a winning night. A couple message boards I post on run monthly campaigns with a tracker to see how close they are to reaching their goal and they reach it every month. Just a thought. 

[Evan Zamir]

Kirk, there’s a big fat Amazon ad at the top of the site. Whatever you purchase there, I get a 6% cut. ;)

-evan

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[Kirk B]

Yeah, but it's only visible with ad-block turned off. I have no idea what it costs to run your website, or how much you make from your amazon affiliate link, I'm just talking from my experience of using your site. I use it daily and I am way more likely to donate money directly to you guys rather than buying stuff from amazon. Because 1) If I'm buying stuff from amazon I have to remember to use your link and 2) Online shopping is practically never on my list of stuff to do after doing DFS research. I'm usually balls deep in lineup constructing. TBH, I'd pay a subscription fee because your site is one of the best and I think you deserve to be well compensated for it. Or you could do a Radiohead method and let people pay what they want. I don't care, just shut up and take my money haha :)

[Evan Zamir]

I actually did try a paypal donate a long time ago and nobody used it. I guess it couldn't hurt though.

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[Evan Zamir]

Ok, added a PayPal Donate button! Let those dollars fly my way haha!

-evan

[Evan Zamir]

Well, I implemented some changes and didn't hear a single performance complaint the past several days (including today's big slate). And I did it without having to spend any more money, just made some (badly needed) changes to the code. So no subscription for a while.

Would certainly appreciate donations though. :)

-evan

[loughy]

Hey Evan,

Thanks for implementing the changes. It's much fast through most of the day, although I've noticed from around 2-4pm EST it's very slow, and at times completely unresponsive. Being that it's a free service, I'm by no means complaining, but I thought it was worth mentioning. I love WOWY and will continue to use it, but it would be great to see better performance during what I'm assuming are peak hours. With that in mind, I'd be happy to give a donation. 

Thanks,

- Loughy

[Evan Zamir]

Hmm…interesting. I haven’t noticed any major slow down myself recently. I guess I’ll have to check more closely. 

-evan

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