It's definitely not pointless. I'll give you an example. .Jobs is completely protected from the evil clutches of domainers but 99.9999% of recruitment agents use .com or some other extension even though they are pretty much guaranteed to get their name .Jobs if they wanted it. There are no .Jobs hoarders but it's not making any progress. How come? This doesn't tally with your view. .Travel was the same until it loosened up its rules
Gold is valuable because it's hoarded and in short supply, once you have acquired a little block of it, it's worth hiring a goldsmith and making something out of it. The same applies to domains.
Professionals have been protected from 99.99% of domainers since June 2004 in .Pro, but have they rushed in and snapped up .pro domains to develop? No, they haven't. Of the 6,500 .pros registered, I'd estimate 100 are developed by qualified professionals. There are 80m .coms registered, so that's alot of .Pro hanging from trees waiting to be picked.
I don't understand this comment. Compared to .Com there is virtually no .pro hoarding. 6,500 domains "hoarded" maximum compared to tens of millions of brilliant company name .Pro possibilities. It's all there if people want it. I very much doubt there is anybody out there thinking, Casino.pro is already registered, I won't open an online casino in that case.
Sure, but on a much smaller scale. If I could register any currently parked .com I would be more likely to find something I liked to register without having to pay a premium on the aftermarket.
I don't think there are many people on this site who are jaded and skeptical Most people are enthusiastic about their chosen alternative extensions, LLLL.coms, IDN's or whatever. Would I be wrong to suggest that you are jaded and skeptical because you don't have any good domains?
If we agreed that registration restrictions and high reg fees were anti-domainer policies, then established an index across gTLD registries as to how anti-domainer each had been, then ran a linear regression between the anti-domainer behaviour index and total domains registered or total domains developed you would have a very strong correlation between low total domains registered and developed and domainer unfriendly policies. It's not a coincidence that Afilias has the most friendly domainer policies or very low reg fees, promotions, and no restrictions and 5m domains registered. Whether you like it or not, there are tens of thousands of .infos developed.
It's mean spirited because Registry.pro have tried to cut domainers out of their own industry. Biting the hand that feeds is impractical, uncommercial, and naive. Domainers in .pro have contributed 10 times more in reg fees than professionally qualified lawyers, doctors, medics and engineers in the UK, France, the US and Canada, they have paid Catherine Sigmar's salary when nobody, especially the audience it was intended for, cared about the extension and deserve recognition and inclusion.
I'm a UK ACA qualified accountant, I can develop web sites, I don't need to make money from parking or domain sales, and I can afford high reg fees and legal action against Registry.pro so I'm pretty safe.
However, I'd rather everybody could register a .Pro because the more domains that get registered, the more sites get developed and the more people will recognise the extension so I can develop and make money out of it. Again, sheer self interest but that outcome is in Registry.pro's interests too so I'm hoping they will loosen up.
You can say that about pretty much every alternative extension. I've never seen a useful .tv, .mobi, .biz etc. Developing an alternative extension is nightmarishly tricky which is why Registry.pro's domainer-phobia is so misplaced and foolish.
