How To Monetize D&D

How to monetize D&D.  
the suits are right, D&D is under-monetized.  The problem is, they’ve been approaching monetization all wrong.  D&D is not a video game, it’s a tabletop game, and must be treated as such.  While they’ve been wasting millions trying to milk a bull, a whole herd of un-milked cows have been standing by unnoticed.  The players of D&D are the wrong place to monetize.  You need to focus on the Dungeon Masters, they are the key!  You just need to hook them and they will drag their players along for you.

D&D Beyond needs to be the best possible tool for the DM’s!  Give them things that legitimately make their lives easier and they will pay for it.  They’ll encourage their players to pay for it.  Some examples:  Instead of wasting money on a 3D virtual tabletop, give the DM’s something they can use at their table!  We don’t need a 3D virtual tabletop when we’re sitting at our physical table.  But, we could use some cool tools to make our table top run better and could even be used for remote play.  How about something more akin to Roll20?  I’d pay for a module that I could plug into my campaign that gives me access to simple 2D maps with fog of war capabilities that I could share with my players.  I’d run the map on my TV table top.  Players could use it on their iPhones or tablets to see what their character sees.  We can link their player token to their dnd beyond character sheet for ease of use.  The players could be enticed to purchase premium digital dice sets, special token art, or special crit effects that play on our shared map or tabletop!  Give me a library of ambiance sound files to choose from to bring my games to life.  I’d pay a subscription for it and encourage my players to do the same.  
how about a calendar for scheduling games?  Players get invited, select dates and times they are available, and so on.  Scheduling games is the most difficult part of DnD.  Give me tools to make it easier!  
how about a cool way to create and manage NPC’s in my campaign?  A D&D world builder!  A map maker!  Stuff we’re already paying third parties for that you could intigrate right into DnD beyond!
Stuff like this is what we as DM’s are looking for.  We don’t want you to replace our tabletop.  We want you to make our tabletop better.  Make D&D beyond invaluable to us and we will drag our players in.  

Quote from FoulHand >>

How to monetize D&D.  
the suits are right, D&D is under-monetized.  The problem is, they’ve been approaching monetization all wrong.  D&D is not a video game, it’s a tabletop game, and must be treated as such.  While they’ve been wasting millions trying to milk a bull, a whole herd of un-milked cows have been standing by unnoticed.  The players of D&D are the wrong place to monetize.  You need to focus on the Dungeon Masters, they are the key!  You just need to hook them and they will drag their players along for you.

D&D Beyond needs to be the best possible tool for the DM’s!  Give them things that legitimately make their lives easier and they will pay for it.  They’ll encourage their players to pay for it.  Some examples:  Instead of wasting money on a 3D virtual tabletop, give the DM’s something they can use at their table!  We don’t need a 3D virtual tabletop when we’re sitting at our physical table.  But, we could use some cool tools to make our table top run better and could even be used for remote play.  How about something more akin to Roll20?  I’d pay for a module that I could plug into my campaign that gives me access to simple 2D maps with fog of war capabilities that I could share with my players.  I’d run the map on my TV table top.  Players could use it on their iPhones or tablets to see what their character sees.  We can link their player token to their dnd beyond character sheet for ease of use.  The players could be enticed to purchase premium digital dice sets, special token art, or special crit effects that play on our shared map or tabletop!  Give me a library of ambiance sound files to choose from to bring my games to life.  I’d pay a subscription for it and encourage my players to do the same.  
how about a calendar for scheduling games?  Players get invited, select dates and times they are available, and so on.  Scheduling games is the most difficult part of DnD.  Give me tools to make it easier!  
how about a cool way to create and manage NPC’s in my campaign?  A D&D world builder!  A map maker!  Stuff we’re already paying third parties for that you could intigrate right into DnD beyond!
Stuff like this is what we as DM’s are looking for.  We don’t want you to replace our tabletop.  We want you to make our tabletop better.  Make D&D beyond invaluable to us and we will drag our players in.  

Sigil was abandoned almost a year ago

Maps has been in development for a while now

Quote from FoulHand>>

The players of D&D are the wrong place to monetize.  You need to focus on the Dungeon Masters, they are the key!  You just need to hook them and they will drag their players along for you.

Please, no. DM's already are the ones normally tasked with buying "the stuff". Sure, if you have a good group you can split the cost of some of the books, however many times pretty much one person is the DM and the players come and go and change, so hinging your DM toolset on players having the materials you want doesn't always work out the best. 

We're tired and broke, man. 

I’d pay for a module that I could plug into my campaign that gives me access to simple 2D maps with fog of war capabilities that I could share with my players.  I’d run the map on my TV table top.  Players could use it on their iPhones or tablets to see what their character sees.  We can link their player token to their dnd beyond character sheet for ease of use.  

The players could be enticed to purchase premium digital dice sets, special token art, or special crit effects that play on our shared map or tabletop!  Give me a library of ambiance sound files to choose from to bring my games to life.  I’d pay a subscription for it and encourage my players to do the same.  

I don't really love the idea of "microtransactions" for D&D, however an incorporated sound mixer could be nice. Thing is, there's already plenty of places to do sounds for your games, so D&D Beyond would mostly be reinventing the wheel there.

I think some of these could be fun ideas, however I do worry that it'll become too much of a microtransaction scheme. World builder, map maker, etc would be fun, but there's already places to do those for free. A more robust "campaign notes/DM notes" section, turning it into more of a campaign WIki would be cool, but I don't know how much use that would really get, especially if you had to pay for it.