SKG, I agree 100% with Equity.

The .com renewal increases are well-known, low (6%) and, most importantly, totally predictable and delineated in the .com contract. More importantly, on a $6 domain, they are more or less meaningless to a developed site and only really matter if you are running a massive, parking arbitrage portfolio. Most people can handle a $0.36 increase in their domain renewal fees without changing their business model.

As of 3 days ago, and all during the time I registered any premium names, the Verisign stated policy to me and everyone else on this board who called and asked: "you can renew at the renewal price as long as you keep the name regged. if you let the name expire, all bets are off" not "we reserve the right to change the renewal price when, where and in whatever random way we chose."

The previous policy was fair and reasonable and predictable, as would a policy that said, "we will limit increases to 7% per year". A policy of utter randomness which is what is currently being described, is not only bad for registrants, it is bad for the TLD because this will deter investment in development. They are vastly underestimating the rationality of people and how they allocate their investment dollars. Asking about the stability of the renewal fees has been the first question of every investment partner I have spoken to about .tv.

It also has no parallels in the real world. "Come rent this piece of land and build a factory on it. Your annual lease will be whatever I choose it to be" is not a policy that is going to lead to a lot of factories being built on your land.
It is a policy that will keep .tv as a wasteland of developed sites as it has been in the past.

It is not like one can't go spend one's time in .com. For X,XXX to XX,XXX, you can get a perfectly decent .com to develop that has type in traffic and none of this nonsense to deal with. It is ludicrous to be the ones working to make a weak TLD more valuable and at the same time having to look over our shoulders to wonder what Verisign will dream up next.

I also don't understand why you (SKG) think that you are protected by regging for three years unless your only strategy is to flip during that time.
While I concede it is unlikely, what if you build a site that is successful and Verisign adds a "0" to your renewal price? I certainly see nothing in writing that says anything about the "10%" limited increase. This is speculation based on random conversations with random enom reps who historically have had no clue about premium names.

Anyway, here is where I come out:

a) this latest change is total nonsense and a complete repudiation of Verisign's prior, repeated assertions about how they were going to handle premiums

BUT

b) I am waiting to see how DM (and by extension their relationship with VSGN) handle themself

The senior Demand Media people I have spoken to so far have struck me as very reasonable, friendly and intelligent, albeit a bit caught by surprise by of all of this. Let's see what they come up with in the next few weeks.