My gut tells me adoption will be low, as I donโt see a reason for an organization to invest real resources behind a major brand component that they do not own. If they ever lose the domain it could be a major conflict in a lot of cases.
I think as a company brand, I agree entirely with you.
I think, though, there may be two main types of names where rental might make sense.
(1) If a developer has a little project that they see having a short lifetime, or even proof of concept, or maybe a long shot fund raise. Might be worth the cost to rent a nice name for a few months to showcase it.
(2) But I think the main use might be to advertising companies that want to run a short term promotion of some type, and extensions like .now will work well for that.
There are of course potential hazards to name from both of these, so owners should think carefully before opting in.
The sort of brandable name that is Atom's main business will not find any (or hardly any)use as rent for the reasons you mention, in my opinion.
In the past, at least Dan and Epik both had rental options, but I don't recall that many names were rented (but maybe they were, but just not mentioned, since not a sale).
-Bob
Someone just registered hand .now (premium), Iโm wondering if they are vibe coding a Talk to the Hand version.
