valentinv
Established Member
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Can someone explain this to me? .tech domains cost like $50 dollars per year but this one is at 3k. I don't get it. Who decides this?
Exactly, these weren't meant for investors. They are from registries who have turned into domainers under the guise of "premium renewals" which is actually pretty slick.Just say no to registry "premium" domains.
Brad
New domain extensions are the wild west.So the ICANN sold the rights for those new TLDs to registries and they can then do whatever they want... I don't know but this seems absurd, shouldn't the registration fee be a fee for registration and therefore be the same for every SLD? Instead it's a registration price. I'm surprised the ICANN isn't more strict here.
Well, it's not just $3k. It's $3k/year.Honestly, $3k might seem like a lot to an investor who’d probably seek to sell the name for the same amount if they could register it for the good ole sum of $10-$15 they’re accustom to. It’s reasonable to assume the “premium” for creative.tech helps keep the name available for an individual or company that may want to actually utilize the name to build out their business/endeavor. Granted, the registry stands to reap the monetary benefit a middleman domainer would.
Think about it this way, if creativetech.com was being offered at $3k many domainers would view the price as a steal. However, most domainers wouldn’t dare list creativetech.com for 3k if they held it. They’d likely command far more. Some potential buyers might argue $3k+ for a domain that does exactly what every other domain does isn’t exactly a deal regardless of whether it uses .com or not etc. Even with an installment option.
In the same extension one renewal fee can be $20, and another is $500, $2000, $5000, $15,000, etc.That's what I'm saying. It's ok for domainers to sell domains for $x,xxx and it's ok for registries to try and cut out the middleman and try to sell their best domains for $x,xxx but it's NOT ok to try and charge $x,xxx per year. If it was pay-once and then standard renewal fee, many of these domains would be snatched up, even by investors.
Let's say a registry has 10,000 of their best domains priced at $1k each and the standard registration/renewal fee of $10. How many of these domains will they ever sell? How many will be renewed? Honestly I don't have any stats but they would have to make 100 sales/renewals every year* to get to the level of just making these domains freely available and letting regular folks register them (if they're really that cool, they will all be snatched no doubt). A steady stream of cash (+ good PR) vs a hope of someone sometimes buying a "premium" domain without realising its exorbitant renewal fee (+ bad PR). Which one is more profitable? Maybe someone here has an answer, because I'm honestly curious.
(*) incidentally, that's a "standard" domaining STR of 1% per year, however I think in the case of registry premium domains it might be lower because of premium renewals...
@HotKeyQuad so get rid of sales and just pay year over year hefty renewals for infinity?
Since you referenced chain names even those, at least with Handshake, have a negligible "renewal" every couple years and that's just to update the status on the chain, and it amounts to literally pennies for the renewal.
These premium renewals are being critiqued from the eye of the investor, not the end user. They simply don't make sense to hold in a portfolio. There is no guarantee of a sale it's just throwing money away and the winner is the registry. Hat's off to that but what does it mean for investors?
If registries want to play domainers, that's great for them sucks for us but we're all going to stay away from these types of domains and keep on chopping up dot-coms until usable names become so horrid that you may as well just base your business solely on a social media account.
There is a feeling of ownership when one buys a domain for 4k, 30k, 100k whatever and it has just a regular renewal fee. I don't think one gets that same feeling on 3k renewals.