@Eric Lyon and/or other relevant mods, I'm requesting that this matter be publicized to all NP members if possible. I know I'm a nobody here requesting such a huge thing, but isn't this a matter that will affect everyone here on NP and elsewhere as well? If either one of the TLDs (.org, .info, .biz, or .asia) were to be successfully corrupted by these new changes then .com (and all other TLDs) will also follow suit since the corrupted TLD will be used as a precedent/excuse/reason/"evidence" and make it easier to corrupt .com and all other TLDs. This kind of thing happens in the law courts all the time.
Personal Opinion:
I think it's both, good and bad news.
For Example:
- Keeping registration fee's capped allows for more prospective low-entry investors to grab them all up before anyone looking to actually develop them into thriving businesses, providing lower threshold investors more opportunity to long-hold or quick flip such assets.
- Opening registration fee's up (Removing all caps) and allowing them to scale, opens up a wide range of possibilities for higher threshold investors. Such as, but not limited to, New floor values for assets they registered during the cap and tripled or better in registration costs, resulting in a liquid state of minimum value at the registrar.
Note: Another unspoken benefit (Behind the scenes) of no caps is that it helps further the structuring of the domain industry itself in a way that supports sliding scale price lines, just like franchises do, or even the IRS (E.g. charging more based on income level).
There are a plethora of business models that cater to consumers with "Based on income" price-lines.
The sliding scale value is unfortunately frowned upon by many businesses when it comes to domain investors, even though they (Them self) use the same exact practice in their brick-n-mortar to charge consumers at different income levels.
There is a lot more to look at on both sides. I've only mentioned the things that jumped out at me first and have some logic behind them. We definitely want to consider the future of our industry, as a whole, as well as a fair market.
The answer is somewhere in the middle I suppose, to appease the masses on both sides. What, exactly, the middle is, I'm not sure.
Just my thoughts anyways.
Everyone's different.
Both sides of the coin have positive and negative out-comes. Weighing which is the least-worse than the other is the hard part.
What ever happens, I can only hope that it's for the greater good of the industry and not abused or manipulated into a power-play that could potentially eliminate low-threshold investors or cripple the industry.
