.org Why I am bullish on .ORG: Plutocratic guilt!

[Rob Monster]

A few folks have been asking about why I have recently become more bullish on .ORG. I thought the topic deserves a post, and perhaps some debate.

In short, the reason why I think .ORG will have a healthy after-market in the coming years is because of what some have called "Plutocratic Guilt". It is a term I learned from a fellow Seattleite named Nick Hanauer who probably has a bit of it -- he is really rich and he likes to talk about it, but then he also likes to philosophize about how rich people need to give back more to society. It started with his 2014 TED Talk:

The sad reality of the world is that the rich do keep getting richer and the poor are mostly staying poor and/or getting poorer, while much of the middle class gets obliterated. The GDP per capita data uses an average to mask this trend but the Gini coefficient of inequality clearly shows that income inequality is getting worse.


As for what to do about, it, my recipe is really simple: sell to rich people. We already do that at Epik, e.g. during October we sold 3 domains above $250K each. However, eventually rich people have enough stuff, and enough businesses. At some point, they start to care a lot more about their "legacy", which is one reason you see elaborate donor recognition walls in high visibility places. More examples here.

However, if you are really rich, you set up a Foundation e.g. the Gates Foundation, or more recently, the Chan Zuckerburg Initiative, etc. It is some mix of estate planning, philanthropy, tax shelter and (hidden) agenda. Most philanthropic funds are actually in the US and likely that pattern continues for the foreseeable future. Most US philanthropies choose .ORG as their extension.

.

 

[Mary Muse]

Back in the crypto rush I sold the top reported "crypto+kw" .org on Flippa.

I think prices will mature concurrent with the bitcoin & blockchain/DLT markets, and prices will reflect.

Patience.

 

[Rob Monster]

Timely news ICYMI:

https://domainnamewire.com/2019/11/07/org-domains-with-rich-history-top-expired-domain-sales/

 

[Recons.Com]

Bought in the closeouts:

MarketingGroup/org, 19 yrs
SmartCoach/org, 10 yrs

 

[matj]

Bought in the closeouts:

MarketingGroup/org, 19 yrs
SmartCoach/org, 10 yrs

Nice. I looked at these yesterday. I really like SmartCoach/org. Good luck!

 

[Recons.Com]

Nice. I looked at these yesterday. I really like SmartCoach/org. Good luck!

Thank you. I was more sure about MG, as I am sure there are companies focusing on marketing for non-profit and for them it would be a great fit. But coaching is similar too.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Buy a .org if all below is true:
- its .com would be priced by an experienced seller at $xx,xxx or close to it
- it makes perfect sense for a non-profit, crypto, motivational, spiritual
- your overall .org holdings are not over 5% of your portfolio
- you are a long term investor.

I really liked the logical structure of your reply (I may 'borrow' the structure for some other TLDs ) Anyway after a few days I decided to try to make my own personal advice in a similar structure:
I will serious consider an .org at standard registration or similar cost when all of the above are met:

• The domain name is a dictionary word or a two-word domain name with many legitimate use possibilities. I do see logic Rob has given for other types like 4L and names, but for me personally I am seeking just one, two word. Just what I like.
• A bit broader than your condition re niches, I would consider. Agree that names obviously suited to organizations have an advantage (in general I mainly look at lifestyle, philanthropy, medical, organization networks, science, writer, motivation, artistic, travel, but not exclusively).
• Either the .com is not available, or offered for a price at least 10x what I would price the .org.
• Past sales of similar .org justify a BIN price at least 20x acquisition costs. By past sales I mean typical, not cherry picking of the highest ones.
• I would not invest in this (or indeed other TLDs) without analysis of what has sold in .org over the past two years. Note this is a weaker condition than yours - not necessarily to me long term investor.
• I look at TLDs and ideally like to see some country code registrations, and .com taken and in most cases .net as well.
• A good price (which this Epik one is).

I would not personally go too extreme on .org, but would definitely not restrict personally to your 5% limit you mention. The fraction of overall sales that are .org is almost 5% and web use not much less, and I think there is evidence to support Rob's impression that .org is doing better of late. I would definitely not have a portfolio of mainly .org though, but if I could find good names at a time I wanted to invest, would go to 20% or more .org without hesitation personally. I am currently just at about 1% so am under-represented in .org.

People should not read too much into this, as I am by no means .org experienced. Never held an .org before 11 months ago, have never held more than 5, have only sold two for $$$. I have 4 .org currently and can see doubling that this month. Still researching which I will ad. So very much an .org newbie .

I really like the idea of listing your conditions to register in something, @Recons.Com. Just for my own interest I am playing with applying the idea to what my conditions are for registering in my country code, .ca, and in an established new gTLD.

Bob

 

[Recons.Com]

I really liked the logical structure of your reply (I may 'borrow' the structure for some other TLDs ) Anyway after a few days I decided to try to make my own personal advice in a similar structure:
I will serious consider an .org at standard registration or similar cost when all of the above are met:

• The domain name is a dictionary word or a two-word domain name with many legitimate use possibilities. I do see logic Rob has given for other types like 4L and names, but for me personally I am seeking just one, two word. Just what I like.
• A bit broader than your condition re niches, I would consider. Agree that names obviously suited to organizations have an advantage (in general I mainly look at lifestyle, philanthropy, medical, organization networks, science, writer, motivation, artistic, travel, but not exclusively).
• Either the .com is not available, or offered for a price at least 10x what I would price the .org.
• Past sales of similar .org justify a BIN price at least 20x acquisition costs. By past sales I mean typical, not cherry picking of the highest ones.
• I would not invest in this (or indeed other TLDs) without analysis of what has sold in .org over the past two years. Note this is a weaker condition than yours - not necessarily to me long term investor.
• I look at TLDs and ideally like to see some country code registrations, and .com taken and in most cases .net as well.
• A good price (which this Epik one is).

I would not personally go too extreme on .org, but would definitely not restrict personally to your 5% limit you mention. The fraction of overall sales that are .org is almost 5% and web use not much less, and I think there is evidence to support Rob's impression that .org is doing better of late. I would definitely not have a portfolio of mainly .org though, but if I could find good names at a time I wanted to invest, would go to 20% or more .org without hesitation personally. I am currently just at about 1% so am under-represented in .org.

People should not read too much into this, as I am by no means .org experienced. Never held an .org before 11 months ago, have never held more than 5, have only sold two for $$$. I have 4 .org currently and can see doubling that this month. Still researching which I will ad. So very much an .org newbie .

I really like the idea of listing your conditions to register in something, @Recons.Com. Just for my own interest I am playing with applying the idea to what my conditions are for registering in my country code, .ca, and in an established new gTLD.

Bob

Thank you ) Basically, it is an algorithm, if you were to code into a program what to look for )

5%: well, it is a rule of thumb and they don't have to be true all the time. The main factors for the advice are that a) .org normally sells for 1/10 to 1/100 of exact match .com, while wholesale purchase price might be 1/1 to 1/10 of .com, so worse ratio of sell to buy normally; b) .org renewals are 35%+ higher. So you have higher liability that, differing from your income, in domain industry is as certain as death and taxes.

Compare:

1000 .coms: 10 sales in a year at $2000 average, minus $8500 renewals, $12,500 net
1000 .orgs: 10 sales in a year at $1500 average, minus $12000 renewals, $3000 net.

And you'd be lucky to have 10 sales of $1500 after commissions with .org on 1000 names.

Basically, as it was stated before, it is not just if .org is profitable or not, it is the opportunity cost.

 

[Crypto2020]

1000 .coms: 10 sales in a year at $2000 average, minus $8500 renewals, $12,500 net
1000 .orgs: 10 sales in a year at $1500 average, minus $12000 renewals, $3000 net.

Basically, as it was stated before, it is not just if .org is profitable or not, it is the opportunity cost.

Maybe I am just mathematically inclined but this is one of the best laid cases, for .com preference over .org and other tlds, that I have seen. Short, concise, to the point. Kudos @Recons.Com!

Although the counter-arguments presented in this thread are something like this:

1) Its easier to find quality names in .org, i.e. even 1% sell-through portfolio might be harder to acquire in .com but might be easier in .org. This seems totally plausible, specially for regging since high-quality .com names are extremely hard to reg

[lol a bit off-topic but need to say this: have encountered the extremely stretched version of this argument many times in the appraisal section, which goes something like "if its regged its worthless, period", conveniently or obliviously ignoring the daily updates of recent sales posted here on NP that were for names regged a few weeks or months ago]

2) be highly selective in buying\regging .org, probably 10-100x more selective than .com, so as to try and push-up the sell-through rate from 1% to 2-3% (much easier said than done though). In other words, .org is not a volume game, so 0,5,10,20,50 high quality .org names might be all that you need depending on your portfolio size.

@Bob Hawkes, might wanna reconsider upping your % portfolio target to 20%? Seems like 1-5% of portfolio size is def more appropriate for .org

Regards,
Crypto

 

[Bob Hawkes]

@Bob Hawkes, might wanna reconsider upping your % portfolio target to 20%? Seems like 1-5% of portfolio size is def more appropriate for .org

Thanks for your comment but I wanted to correct a misreading of my post re 20%. That was not a target, but rather the maximum amount I would ever hold even if I could cheaply find great names in .org that met all of my other criteria. I pointed out in the post that currently I hold about 1% and was anticipating using the promotion to maybe double that to 2% or very slightly more.

So the good question is why have a maximum at all (the 5% @Recons.Com gave or the 20% I gave)? To me it is simply not to put too much of your investments in one place because it is difficult to project to the future in assets that typically have long term hold times. To me 5% was too low because that was essentially the current percentage of sales that are .org. So, considering the trends that seem upward, the widespread use of .org, its long term history as a major TLD, I said maybe for me personally an absolute limit is like 20%, not that I am anywhere near that figure and doubt I would find enough names I personally want to go there.

I like hugely the quantitative way @Recons.Com views the opportunity cost. I had never thought about it this clearly. The idea can, and should, be applied to lots of options, including subsets of .com. It is not just sell through rate (which appears rather sold in .org) but also typical sales prices and renewal costs as well, that need to be considered. Thanks for a great contribution!

Compare:

1000 .coms: 10 sales in a year at $2000 average, minus $8500 renewals, $12,500 net
1000 .orgs: 10 sales in a year at $1500 average, minus $12000 renewals, $3000 net.

Finally, one point not,I think, covered earlier in the thread, the fraction of .org that is right for any person to hold probably depends on what niches you invest in. For example, in my domain catalog many of the niches that make sense for .org are represented (biotech, environment, family life, clubs, make a difference, medical/health, science, astro/space, writers, music, podcasts, sports, travel, spaces etc.). I have 44 categories, and .org could make sense in about half of them. So it might be right for me personally to hold more .org than someone who invested main in say canna, CBD and loan domain names. Need to get that 1% up! . I think this may also explain why some people have said they had good experiences selling .org and others have said it has not worked out for them.

Thank you @Rob Monster for pointing out there could be good reasons to consider .org, and offering a great deal on them. Also thank you for suggesting specific niches - like I had never considered the idea of last names and foundations. What is right for each person may be different, but I think it is true that many of us should at least consider a few more .org.

Bob

 

[Rob Monster]

Your daily reminder that it is a rich man's game:

https://www.zerohedge.com/economics...much-wealth-middle-and-lower-classes-combined

Here is the essential chart:

The reason why many people are reporting crappy sales is because the middle class is being systematically obliterated. So, your either figure how to sell to rich people, who have all the wealth, or become poor.

So, long story short, if you are a domainer with non-crap domains, it is high time to figure out how to:

Sell to rich people.
Lease to poor people.

With the wealth you get from the above, use your extra prosperity to lift up more people in whatever way you happen to be uniquely equipped.

For @Eric Lyon, it is a cool story of helping folks out by making affordable high-tech RV parks that don't suck and are safe to raise families.

So, my advice, is to figure out how to sell to rich people but then pay if forward. Along the way, if you do come across a genuine hardship case, by all means gift a domain here or there. It comes back.

 

[MTB]

Rob, please add a maybe/not sure option then I can vote! Thanks

 

[Compassion]

.ORG will remain unaffected by mass quantities of new GLTDS. It is one of the big three original extensions, utilized since the 1990s, ... most importantly trust is implied and established. .ORG is internationally recognizable. A few years ago I sold officer in this extension, probably too cheap! ($5k). Someone came really really wanting the name a couple of years later and likely would have paid much more.

 

[cabotower]

managed to find...returnable.org

 

[matj]

Picked up the following dictionary word .org in GD closeouts:

Threaten(.)org

 

[Recons.Com]

Picked up the following dictionary word .org in GD closeouts:

Threaten(.)org

Congrats. Just wondering what kind of use you envision for it?

 

[matj]

The first things that came to mind were:

• Domestic & Family Violence
• Legal-related matters
• Workers Rights / Unions

Its certainly no six figure name, but it does relate to the extension and for $12, its worth the risk imo

 

[Dorelu]

I was bullish on .ORG and tried to remain bullish even when ICANN agreed to remove price caps.
I own Dorel.org since 2008, when I discovered domaining. If Ethos Capital will raise the price above $100, I'll dump my name in .ORG
A private equity company will try to make more money, for sure. That's make me bearish on .ORG

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Was wondering whether the private equity takeover of .org would change your bullish outlook @Rob Monster or still feel as positive about the prospects for the right kind of .org domain names? It is of course too early to know the directions the new owners will take the TLD.
Bob

 

[wwwweb]

Was wondering whether the private equity takeover of .org would change your bullish outlook @Rob Monster or still feel as positive about the prospects for the right kind of .org domain names? It is of course too early to know the directions the new owners will take the TLD.
Bob

If you want to know the owners direction, follow the direction that has come into effect with Donuts takeover, step 1 was to increase prices.

 

[Rob Monster]

Was wondering whether the private equity takeover of .org would change your bullish outlook @Rob Monster or still feel as positive about the prospects for the right kind of .org domain names? It is of course too early to know the directions the new owners will take the TLD.
Bob

I think the Donuts example shows cheap year 1 registrations. They are using the registrant/registrar as commission-free sales channel to push inventory to retail customers. The wildcatters may make a margin on the quick flip but the registry gets the annuity with ~100% margins. Win-win-win. It will be ok.

The registries that figure out how to get sustained traction will become cash machines, especially if they figure out how to bundle domains with some value added functionality, and/or create network effects.

 

[manpreet]

Agreed, .org is a powerful TLD, for many niches.

 

[Crypto2020]

Not being discouraged by the recent PE acquisition of .org and continuing with my Old-Age Care\ Critical Care theme picked up another .org today

HospiceAmerica.org

 

[BrandCollectors.com]

realt.org to renew or not please advice?

 

[cabotower]

realt.org to renew or not please advice?

-
why do you need to renew? whois shows expiry nov 2020.

 

[Rob Monster]

-
why do you need to renew? whois shows expiry nov 2020.

I would keep that one. PM for details if you need them.