The way Sortfolio works is that designers and agencies pay to be listed on the site. But if you build a good following on Dribbble, you'll start receiving new job offers every week. So why would you pay $99 a month for Sortfolio?
This means Sortfolio doesn't include the best designers, since they don't need the service it provides. There are still some good design agencies on there (because they can afford the price), but I'm not sure how long that will remain a viable market.
The bottom line is that if your barrier to entry is money instead of talent, it'll be hard to reach the best people.
This is one of the fundamental things 37signals doesn't seem to understand. In a winner-take-all market, which includes any market with strong network effects, you want to get as big as you can as fast as you can.
Charging for the product makes that harder and opens you up to having someone compete against you for free while monetizing indirectly (via ads, affiliate revenue, secondary services, whatever).
See also: about.me vs. flavors.me
It's like they're constitutionally incapable of recognizing this.
This is what I posted on their blog post on the issue. I couldn't imagine anyone paying for this service in this day and age, especially since there doesn't appear to be any barrier-to-entry as to who can be listed. I scrolled for quite a bit and did not find a single designer or agency that was remotely professional.
Sortfolio is like the 99designs of finding a company to build your site, except they screw both sides of the invoice with a ridiculous price tag to list, which I can only assume lifts the price of the final product.
This means Sortfolio doesn't include the best designers, since they don't need the service it provides. There are still some good design agencies on there (because they can afford the price), but I'm not sure how long that will remain a viable market.
The bottom line is that if your barrier to entry is money instead of talent, it'll be hard to reach the best people.