new gtlds Day 1 of the implosion N.gTLDs. Stop renewing

[betthelot]

This will be seen as Day 1 of the implosion of new gTLDs. Fundamental shift of opinion and direction happened at Mind+Machines the owners of .London .Law and the not so good .Horse .Rodeo, 20 in total. Big player in this space.

If you are investing in new gTLDs, you really need to read this.
I started a thread headless.domainer in a topless.bar to show why the new gTLDs have not taken off and why they will not. There was little defense of the new gTLDs .

Fortunately the fired co founder of Mind+Machines the CEO, who arguably is a bigger new gTLD believer than Frank Shilling, gave a detail response why he got fired and his difference of opinion with the board (notably all the board members voted him out). His response I feel is the best defense of the new gTLDs, he's still a big believer, so Im going to break his response down to get an insight of what is happening in this space.

Minds + Machines, the company I founded in 2009, informed me last week that I was no longer wanted as CEO.
Now what? New gTLDs are barely birthed. The industry is very young. Twelve million new gTLD names have been sold in just about two years. That's nearly 5% of all domain names out there. What reasonable person doesn't expect that to rise to 20% or more within the next few years? There's a lot of opportunity in the field.

ICANN predicted originally 33 million new gTLD domain name registrations in 2015—a number it later revised to just 15 million. Didnt hit that, so by any measure the numbers are pitiful
Conveniently forgets even those numbers are inflated by 5million that were registered at $1 or less. A rise to 20% of nothing is nothing. Interestingly his last post blasted strings like .xyz for distorting registration numbers and giving new gLTDs a bad rep for spam and fraud.
Domianers have spent by far the most acquiring these names. We are holding up this whole ecosystem.

And yet there are some signs of desperation out there. (AGREE) Demand for new gTLDs hasn't been what anyone expected.(AGREE) Many single-TLD registries, though not all, are hurting.(AGREE) Many registrars still do not fully support new gTLDs that aren't plain-vanilla .com clones. Its because they dont sell, GoDaddy and others will only promote what the enduser want, its your job to create enduser demand.

ICANN continues to treat registries and registrars as unpleasant necessities despite the fact that its sky-rocketing budget is underwritten by domain name sales. No breakout awareness of new gTLDs has yet occurred and until it does marketing of the new gTLDs, many feel as useless as pushing a piece of string.

OH its ICANNs responsibility to promote the new gTLDs. YEP no marketing, no awareness, no sales, its Business 101 But I forgot the new gTLDs were special, there was going to be people banging down your door to reg them. Didn't happen, so its ICANNs fault, not that you completely over estimated demand. If you felt that the new gTLDs would fail without ICANN promoting them, shouldnt you have made sure they were going to do that before you sunk millions into new gTLDs.

Even so, the larger players in our industry continue to be very bullish: .shop went for more than $40M, the single biggest mistake in domain history, wrote a post about that as well.
.app went for $25M and a secondary market in new gTLDs is heating up fast. Really could of fooled us domainers. Existing registries, and companies outside the space, are on the prowl. Despite the perceived lack of demand, some people are clearly seeing a lot of value in new gTLDs. Yes and Mind + Machines are hoping to be brought out before they lose more money. Have not shown an operational profit since its inception in 2009.

Why the disconnect? It's a matter of perspective, and cash. Owning a registry, or even better a portfolio of them, is a fantastic long-term business. Those who can't think long term (no cash) or won't (no vision), will not be well served by what's to come. OK so you wanted to burn more cash to realize your long term vision and the board disagreed with your long term vision being profitable and wanted to call a halt to the cash spend.


What kind of registries are out there, and how will they fare? Below I've listed some of the major types of commercial models (non-brand) that exist today, and what their prospects are; there are also hybrids of these models.

• Registry as a domainer play: the registry is essentially an unlimited portfolio of names, and like a domainer you can price your inventory, park it, and wait for the right buyer to walk through the door. This model is concerned with understanding the value of each name and pricing it for maximum return. It also requires staying power and self-sufficiency; impatient investors are going to have a hard time with this model. This is the premium pricing and renewals model that the registries like so much. So the numbers look crap noone is buying them at the prices you set and investors are getting restless. Perhaps they are overpriced.
• Registry as supermarket. Sell it super-cheap or give it away and try to win on large volumes with low margins. Because low prices disproportionately attract fraudsters, this approach is problematic but in the short term at least it seems to be profitable. In terms of resale, however, it may be a poisoned well. (AGREE).
• Registry as small business. Make some nice signs, tell some friends, try to get good shelf space at the local store, take out some stands at trade shows, get some testimonials, keep the costs down, and build the business over time. This can work if there are no investors, or if they are angel investors looking for a nice ongoing income in the future. Having a single TLD instead of a portfolio is actually an advantage here. AGREE keep cost down, BUT 47% of the strings are not even profitable if you say there is only a $150,000 annual running cost.
• Registry as part of a bigger plan. Naming is part of a vaster ecosystem that includes the branding, positioning, marketing, selling and licensing of companies, goods, and services on the Internet. And, importantly, it includes Internet governance. It takes no great power of observation to see that being a big registry, essential to commerce and communication on the Internet, contributing substantial amounts to ICANN, gets you a privileged seat at ICANN, at the center of things when it comes to deciding what the Internet will look like in 10 years. That's actually worth a lot, but it's only available, or useful, to the biggest players. A dig at Verisign influence on ICANN. Again ICANNs fault. ICANN is the scape goat for the failing new gTLDs, I expect we will hear this more and more but they are not there to promote the registries names.

Existing portfolio registries have basically two ways to go. One option is to build up the TLDs in the existing portfolio, treating them as a collection of small businesses, and hope that they become self-sustaining and will fetch a decent multiple of profits in an eventual sale. A better option would be to treat today's highly fragmented ownership of new gTLDs as an opportunity to continue the portfolio-building that began with the first applications, acquiring good TLDs that are selling cheap now, keeping focused on the long-term value.
There selling cheap because they are not making any money and your board decided they never will.

One thing we agree on IS there will be consolidation as more of these new gTLDs fail.

Internet Identity that looks at security of the internet for businesses and governments said this recently about the new gTLDs, and remember they have no axe to grind, they are not invested one way or another.

IID anticipates an unprecedented series of domain registry failures as a result of the lack of gTLD popularity by 2017 in the form of bankruptcies and abandonment. “Most new gTLDs have failed to take off and many have already been riddled with so many fraudulent and junk registrations that they are being blocked wholesale,” said IID President and CTO Rod Rasmussen. “This will eventually cause ripple effects on the entire domain registration ecosystem, including consolidation and mass consumer confusion as unprofitable TLDs are dropped by their sponsoring registries.” WHEN THIS HAPPENS BAD PUBLICITY FOR ALL new gTLDs and LOSE OF TRUST. THIS WILL BE THE NAIL IN THE COFFIN.

I have been a domainer since late December 1999 and what I see today really worries me about domainers losing their shirt. Do your research and invest wisely guys. Dont listen to propaganda, look at the numbers, they dont lie.

 

[Fancy.domains]

Renewals increase

I have renewed a few hundred ngTLDs the past year and zero of these have had increased renewal rates.

Instead, I have transferred many just to get cheaper renewal rates. Ok, this has nothing to do with the registries (but the registrars), but I guess you get my point.

 

[SiteMachine]

We now have 2.5 million .XYZ registrations. Yet if you look at DNPRIC.ES there are fewer than 40 reported sales over $1000? And only about ten of those are actuall keywords - the rest are 1-3 character numerics or LL/LLL type names. Sales #99 and #100 (Juegos & Madrid) were for around $250 each. Type in "juegos" into DNPric.es and there are at least 100 reported domain sales for $1000 plus. Most of those are multi-word domains. And the one-word .XYZ cannot even break $300. I guess if you are a developer...

Well that's one way to look at it if you want to throw economics out the window. .xyz hasn't yet proven itself to be more than 20x more valuable than many other new 3 letter tlds which there IS a supply of about a handful of with juegos.*** for non-premium reg fees of under $20 so I'm actually shocked someone paid $250 for them right now. Many xyz domains were sold at ~$0.20 so an increase in 3+ orders of magnitude in under 3 years(edit: make that under 2 years I realized it sold over a year and a half ago) (with similar supply available for reg fee) and you're turning up your nose at it? LOL the bubble has made you guys spoiled I'll tell you

 

[brindle123]

I didn't find out about the .net price increase until I read it on here. Do you guys get any notice from your registrars of renewal increases? I can't remember, but I think it was less than 180 days notice for the .net increase or maybe I found out in less time. Maybe someone can clear that up for me?

I can't remember but I think I was only given a 30 day notice of a .com increase before. My memory sucks.

If you have a lot of domains, it's hard to reg a bunch for multiple years just to try to beat a price increase.

If you have a 100 .xyz domains and they go from $10 renewal to $15 renewals(given 180 day notice), you would need to come up with $10,000 to renewal them all for the 10yr limit, just to beat the renewal increase.
That's not that easy for most people to come up with $10k in less than 180 days!

Does it say anything in the registries policy that says they CAN'T change domains to a Premium classification? I'm sure that if you ASK them, they will say that they never would. Is it in writing though?

The confusing pricing and multiple extensions that have the same meaning, is why the end user will be reluctant to adopt the new gtlds. Domainers buy them way more than end users, then have to try and market them to the end user. We then have to explain the crazy prices and multiple gtld that are basically the same meaning(.biz, .business, .photo, .pic).

Thanks ICANN for creating a nightmare for everyone except the registries. This is a very poor business practice/model.

I can see a time when there is a class action lawsuit filed against ICANN for lack of protection.

 

[betthelot]

Does it say anything in the registries policy that says they CAN'T change domains to a Premium classification? I'm sure that if you ASK them, they will say that they never would. Is it in writing though?

No I have gone through the policy in detail and there is nothing in there. Versign policy, is very tight on pricing of .com and .net but the new gTLDs policy with ICANN there is no restriction on pricing or increases, just notification notice to registrars (Goddady)..., no notice is needed to the general public, thats left to the registrars (Godaddy...) to decide when they tell their customers, I think they are thinking leave it to market forces. There is nothing that says the registry can't target certain names as having higher price increases over others. Just bad business practice if they do. I think it would be the end of the string if they tried that trick non premium to premium because domainers will leave by the thousands leaving just endusers, 5% of the registrants if that.

 

[betthelot]

there is no pricing policy from the registry to the registrant. Mind + Machines pricing policy is this

Registrars determine their own prices after purchasing them from the registry at a wholesale price. You will find a variety of prices that correspond to different levels and bundles of goods and services. The prices of Minds + Machines TLDs will be competitive with other top-level domains....

 

[betthelot]

Basically do what you want

 

[JB Lions]

"investor J. Carlo Cannell,"

"While I am a believer in new GTLDs, it is going to be many years before their revenue in any way materially approaches the revenue potential of our registrar operations. In my view, NAME’s registrar has become like a crazy aunt kept in the basement, one that you refuse to adequately clothe or feed, but who steadfastly spins straw into gold used to subsidize a stable of largely substandard new GTLDs such as .democrat, .dance, .army, .navy, and .airforce. Most of these new GTLDs are irrelevant and will never be sold in material volumes. NAME is holding back the growth potential of your registrar by pushing garbage extensions to a user base that quietly knows better."

Some of these are head scratchers. It would be interesting to be in the room for some of these, the discussions.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/major-rightside-shareholder-upset-with-focus-on-new-tlds.925552/

http://domainincite.com/20061-activist-investor-slams-rightside-over-garbage-new-gtlds-looking-for-blood?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+DomainIncite+(DomainIncite.com)

http://domainnamewire.com/2016/03/01/major-rightside-shareholder-upset-focus-new-tlds/

 

[brindle123]

"He wants Rightside to sell off “or even abandon” some of its weaker gTLDs, which “should not consume all the resources of our Company at the expense of the assets that are currently profitable”, while keeping “gems” such as .news."

That doesn't sound good when the people running the show are having doubts about their business model.
Scary!!!
They will have to abandon the gtlds that are not profitable. If a gtld is abandoned, all domain owners should be given a refund or stock shares. Maybe that would stop all the crappy worthless gtlds from coming to market.

"I am troubled by the pivot toward, and unrelenting propaganda about, new generic top-level domain names (“GTLDs”)."

 

[betthelot]

What is so interesting about this, is that he is saying the same views that we have expressed on this thread and which many people think is a bit extreme. He's suggesting to abandon the weaker gTLDs and when we have said that this will happen, its been met with derision. This guy is also a serious investor and a well-known investor. We only get to see under the hood of these publicly Listed companies, there are only two of the new gTLDs registries that we can get an insight into, which are mind and machines and rightside and both over the last two weeks have shown a lot of dissent from the investors. The two comments I really love in his filing to the SEC is that there is too much propaganda of the new gTLDs and that the public quietly know better by not registering the poor gTLDs.
Day 2 of the implosion of the new gTLDs.

 

[brindle123]

Maybe ICANN can refund the domain owners of failed gtlds using the startup money that goes into starting a new gtld!
Yeah Right like that will happen.

 

[betthelot]

Maybe ICANN can refund the domain owners of failed gtlds using the startup money that goes into starting a new gtld!
Yeah Right like that will happen.

ICANN has an emergency backend that its policy says will be used for 3 years to maintain a failing or abandoned gTLD. But says nothing about what happens after those 3 years. They did not envision the possibility that they could fail so badly that another registry would not bid to buy the rights, within 3 years. I think some of these new gTLDs will fail with no buyers and after 3 years ICANN will give notice to the registrants that they need to find an alternative domain as this gTLD is going to an early.grave. Suppose to be second rounds in 2017 I bet we see a lot less applications and ICANN rethinking if more are needed at all, outside .brands. Could be the end of .genertics which may help.

 

[brindle123]

Rightside withdrew some new gltds before they were approved, I believe.
I think they are starting to see the writing on the wall.

No registry will pick up a gtld that has failed with a different registry. If a gtld fails and is put into the 3yr period, there will be tons of drops and no future reg's will/can happen.

I don't think ICANN will make them pick one up either.
That leaves the loss on the domain holder.

 

[betthelot]

Go

Rightside withdrew some new gltds before they were approved, I believe.
I think they are starting to see the writing on the wall.

No registry will pick up a gtld that has failed with a different registry. If a gtld fails and is put into the 3yr period, there will be tons of drops and no future reg's will/can happen.

I don't think ICANN will make them pick one up either.
That leaves the loss on the domain holder.

Good point I didn't know that. Your right the domain owner will be the loser. These registries have treated domainers badly with their premium pricing, reserving names (now in 10s of thousands, when in the first launches it was 100s). High renewals and the EAP programme. Yet it's domainers keeping this whole messed up venture afloat. I hope domainers revolt and the registries get what they deserve, a few end users who don't want to pay sh*t for them.

 

[betthelot]

The other point of note is rightside has lost 50% of its stock value in 2 years. The other big investors in rightside are frank schilling and Daniel Negari they own together about 15% of the stock. With the investor Canell they can pretty much dictate who is on the board and what strategy they take.
Also ICANN's policy is if you lose 3 UDRPs in 4 years you can not become a registry. Enom part of the group lost far more but again ICANN did not enforce their own rules. They are like a grandmother without teeth.

 

[garptrader]

Interesting comments from a major shareholder.... "....unrelenting propaganda about new TLDs.... most of these new TLDs are irrelevant and will never be sold in material volumes...pushing garbage extensions to a user base that knows better...."

If I acquire 100 .COM domains, just to have breakeven cash flow going forward I need either 1 sale at $1250 or 5 sales at $250 each etc assuming $10 renewals and 20% commissions. Domainers tend to not pay much more than low $XXX for domains and more often they focus on auctions rather than looking for aftermarket domains. End user purchases are far less common but domainers can provide some liquidity at a wholesale level. Eventually though there has to be an end user to feed the process. If the domain investor who was buying at $250 each cannot sell any domains to end users, they stop buying at $250.

So it is with new TLDs. There is only so much speculative money on the sidelines that can fuel the new TLD mania and maintain a registration base without end users footing the bill. There only has to be enough end user support to pay renewal bills and you can at least wait for the long-term maturation of the market. Otherwise though the new TLD speculator has to fund renewals from outside sources - .COM sales or website earnings or a full-time job. .Net has existed for 30 years while .TV was launched in 2000 and .Info I believe in 2003. Yes there are occasional sales in those extensions but investors in those TLDs generally have not done well - thus a stagnating registration base. So why should we believe new TLDs will gain mass market acceptance in the next few years?

With 12-14 million new TLD registrations (some with premium renewals), how many end user sales does it take to pay the renewals?

assume 12 million domainer held new TLDs x $10 average renewal = $120 million in annual renewals

FYI that is more than $2 million in renewals a week - Do you see that sort of new TLD aftermarket sales volume on DNJ?

Don't expect to be able to sell off your new TLD portfolio to other domainers because it is likely they already have all the new TLDs they want and are looking for someone to help pay their renewal bill.

About seven years ago I had more .Net than .COM and about five years ago I had more .TV than .COM. Those registration stats are now much lower than they were at their peak - not enough buyers of domains in those TLDs.

 

[SiteMachine]

Um, did you guys even read the article you are quoting? I hope not because if so your reading comprehension is abysmal.

J Carlo Canell is frustrated at the focus of Rightside's funds on purchasing many new gTLDs when they have a user interface that "is untouched and acts like time capsule to what existed half a decade ago". As was quoted above, he believes that even entire TLDs as a business investment are still a good move saying they "are one of many opportunities in the emerging market for second generation domain names" and that he is "a believer in new GTLDs" hinting in the next sentence there about the inevitability of their revenue eventually approaching their "current registrar operations". That's him confident in the viability of owning even the weaker gTLDs (if Rightside had its ducks in a row otherwise which they clearly do not).

He also submits a 6 step plan and request including revamping the UI, none of the 5 steps mention even dumping a single gTLD (he does want to fire 1 of every 5 employees though).

Now for some actual facts, the ICANN require 3 years of operating expenses (guidelines at icann.org/news/announcement-3-2011-12-23-en)

This is $18k for <10,000 domains ~$6k/yr or $300k for >250,000 domains so ~100k/yr
Most likely in a failing gTLD situation they are likely to have way under 10,000 registrations since with 250k domains even at $1/yr you have almost tripled your operating expenses. So for example .green is a not so successful tld with 2,200 registrations and estimated cost of operations of $6k/yr meaning it would have to have 1,200 of 2,200 renew at $5/yr in order to not go under. Nothing crazy, the major expense to these new gTLDs isn't the operating costs it was the application fee and will be any advertising they chose to do. Now that's a worst case with a "failing" gTLD and if you think about it the chance of complete failure is insanely small but even if it weren't you are painting all gTLDs with the same brush when it should be quite obvious that each and every one will suceed or fail separately than the others.

Oh yeah and in the event .green couldn't get 1200 renewals at the $5 to stay afloat AND had already ran through the COI funds then you go to the transition process icann.org/resources/pages/transition-processes-2013-04-22-en which provides for 3 different situations to make sure transition is possible and there is incentive to do so.

Doom and gloom doom and gloom... or maybe not so much once you pull out a calculator.

I have one single domain in .delivery and that is the only gTLD I have any names in that I could see hitting this point (yes, rightside runs the backend for it and its a pretty poor gtld). .delivery is owned by an LLC controlled by Donuts Inc. If you look you will see every gTLD they control is owned by a different LLC. Some might say that's shady since if it fails they are not responsible but it protects the gTLDs they own from bringing each other down.

Now I do agree with some sentiments that garptrader posted above, if you are buying new gTLD domains with plans to flip them all for high returns in a short amount of time in a highly liquid market then you're nuts because that highly liquid market doesn't currently exist and probably won't for some time.

 

[Silentptnr]

It is clear to me that 2015 was a year of excitement that reached the highest levels of the industry. Now that the fun night is over, many are rolling over and seeing what they really got into bed with.

Moving forward, I do believe that domain "trading" is finding it's way to becoming a truly stable market. I don't see end user purchases increasing more than usual, but I do see more and more individual investors entering the market and keeping the wheels turning. For the most part, I believe it is healthy.

As to what happens if, or even possibly when, the ngtlds have failures, well, frankly it will be something new and I can only speculate that like any other business, there will be losers, but those losses could create opportunities for others to buy cheap.

I do believe that the web and domain names are here to stay. I just think that it is still taking shape. Too early to say how it will all shake out. But none of this is really a surprise.

 

[Silentptnr]

One other observation. Perhaps it is because .com is so established, people might not realize that there are plenty of top, top .com domain names just sitting on spreadsheets waiting to be purchased. Some of them probably for years. Even .com domains can be tough to sell at high prices.

 

[betthelot]

So for example .green is a not so successful tld with 2,200 registrations and estimated cost of operations of $6k/yr meaning it would have to have 1,200 of 2,200 renew at $5/yr in order to not g

Clearly you don't run a business and I strongly suggest you do not if you believe the operating costs are $6k a year. You need to pay salaries, rent, maintenance, heating, electric, local services taxes, equipment, marketing..... Of course you would prorata the costs over all the gTLDs owned by rightside but it would still be much higher than $6k a year to keep .green as part of their portfolio. Spent 185,000 on application fee then you need to add the internal administration costs to submit the application fee. Be looking at north of 200,000usd. No company can afford to be receiving 6k in revenue with all the overhead costs and already 200k in the red. This is why their share price has halved in 2 years. That's why he said he wants to ditch some of the gTLDs the business model is failing.

 

[SiteMachine]

Clearly you don't run a business and I strongly suggest you do not if you believe the operating costs are $6k a year.

Thanks for the advice, the numbers are from ICANN and are based on the costs only to operate the names in an emergency. When I said not go under I meant the TLD not the registry, the registry can be gone and then it goes through the rest of the process, read the links I posted. Any RFPs can propose their own "buy in" fee and you can bet it will be way less than $185k. Now if ICANN got a decent RFP and rejected it because it wasn't enough money to line their pockets then I could understand people talking about class action lawsuits. Oh wait nvm:

1. If there is a qualified successor registry identified through this process, any funds collected from this applicant less evaluation costs and outstanding fees due will go to the registry operator disposing of the gTLD.

So they don't even have a financial incentive to do that. They said IF, so its very likely another registry could pick up the gTLD for simply the cost of operating expenses.

I think I have all the actual facts I need, thanks.

 

[betthelot]

Thanks for the advice, the numbers are from ICANN and are based on the costs only to operate the names in an emergency. When I said not go under I meant the TLD not the registry, the registry can be gone and then it goes through the rest of the process, read the links I posted. Any RFPs can propose their own "buy in" fee and you can bet it will be way less than $185k. Now if ICANN got a decent RFP and rejected it because it wasn't enough money to line their pockets then I could understand people talking about class action lawsuits. Oh wait nvm:

1. If there is a qualified successor registry identified through this process, any funds collected from this applicant less evaluation costs and outstanding fees due will go to the registry operator disposing of the gTLD.

So they don't even have a financial incentive to do that. They said IF, so its very likely another registry could pick up the gTLD for simply the cost of operating expenses.

I think I have all the actual facts I need, thanks.

you said operating costs - if you or ICANN think the operating costs would be $6k a year you would be sorely mistaken. The new registry operating the emergency back up would need to provide support

Emergency 24/7 support environments via email, and phone;

Non emergency support functions during business hours (e.g., 8:00 to 17:00 in the supported
regions Monday to Friday);

Programmatic escalation to 2nd and 3rd level live support;

FAQs, tutorial, and general help database for self service;

Full ticketing system with external customer view in a web based UI;

Ability to provide ICANN with standard call center statistics;

Routine customer satisfaction surveys or “scorecards” or other KPI metrics to demonstrate
effective customer support services to ICANN;

Ability to authenticate permitted Registrar contacts and document all support contacts and
issue resolutions (i.e., CRM and ticketing systems experience).

and thats after you have

Startup or Initiation of service;
A reoccurring fee to maintain the stand by EBERO operated registry system;
A per event charge for each Registry transitioned into the EBERO operated registry system.
A reoccurring fee to operate the a TLD in the EBERO operated registry system;
Time and Materials pricing framework for EBERO operated registry system changes and
enhancements requested by ICANN.

All for $6k a year, not a chance in hell. Im sure those regitries applying to be part of EBERO will make that clear.

 

[SiteMachine]

$6k is the ICANN's estimate not mine and its for under 10k domains. All the other costs you listed are irrelevant, anyone who can bid successfully will already have a back end registry in place so adding under 10k domains to that infrastructure would be inconsequential.

 

[betthelot]

$6k is the ICANN's estimate not mine and its for under 10k domains. All the other costs you listed are irrelevant, anyone who can bid successfully will already have a back end registry in place so adding under 10k domains to that infrastructure would be inconsequential.

You still have to provide that infrastructure and real people answering the telephone and emails and doing the admin to comply with ICANN rules for each string you run on the emergency system. In time you will see those costs will be adjusted up by ICANN once the registries reply to the RFI.

 

[jbjbjbjbjbjb]

Doesn't matter, the short answer is if i GTLD doesn't sell to cover costs it will eventually be shut down after perhaps a max 3 year period. I can see quite a few GTLD's going that way

 

[betthelot]

Doesn't matter, the short answer is if i GTLD doesn't sell to cover costs it will eventually be shut down after perhaps a max 3 year period. I can see quite a few GTLD's going that way

Exactly its only a matter of time and no registry can run a string at only $6k revenue