http://startupleague.online/
Thought some of you might like this initiative by
Radix:
The Startup League is a unique initiative which rewards our most promising, early-stage startup clients. It is a program designed to provide a wide range of support, through a bouquet of free goodies, marketing support and sponsorships.
Startups using the following new top-level domains are eligible:
.tech .space .online .store .press .host .site .website
Anyone that is my age (20-25) and is just entering the domaining world understands the value in .coms but also realizes that for our generation its not whats going to be driving the domain markets further. NGTLD's are what people my age will be using and apart from the issue of name collisions this adoption, although many investors in .com may not want it to happen, will be continuing to proceed through a logical plot line,
@168 provided a very clear and statistically driven timeline that I believe isn't very far off from being a near perfect prediction of whats to come, 2020 is the big year. The rigidity and incredibly high prices on premium ngtlds is a defensive strategy deployed by registrars to get rid of domainers, in other words, they not only want bake the cake...they want to eat it too. However, after a few years of testing this its become clear to some registrars (like .Club) that their expectations($$$$) and their pricing ($$$$) do not resonate nor comply with the current risk appetites of both end users and domainers alike. This has caused the more activist/forward thinking registrars to make price corrections and in some cases entirely eliminate/reduce premium pricing on domains they previously held, as well as reduce renewal fees. .Com will be unable to compete with this as their renewal prices will remain fixed at $7.85 until 2024.
If every ngtld had streamlined registration and renewal fees below $10, with no registry held premiums or registry held premiums in the sub 1k range with regular renewals, .com premiums would have devalued in price at an alarming rate because such immense price competition would create a huge correction in the values of premiums all across the board. This isn't the case in the current market but renewal costs and the prices of registry held premiums will continue to go down deep into the early 2020's for ngtlds.
This will be the death of .com IMHO...not now but in the coming future:
End User: If I could get Data.Center for $50k at regular renewals of $13.99 in comparison to DataCenter.com for $850k and a slightly cheaper renewal cost ($8), I'd pick the 1st one because not only am I getting a great name I'm also saving money on dev, marketing and maintenance costs as well as being in line with the standard renewal costs of a legacy tld. The person squatting on the .com will not have the same level of resources and as search algorithms evolve the traffic loss will lessen and eventually be completely elimated reducing the perceived advantage of having a "COM" to the right of the dot.
New Gen Domainer: If I could get Data.Center for $50k-$100k at the standard renewal price for my registrar, knowing that in a few years time the renewal price will be close to .com in comparison to DataCenter.com for $850k-$1.5 Million and the same/similar renewal cost then I will hold my ngtld to the
Nth year and then execute price arbritrage testing the market for every year I own the name, until I can sell at a desirable profit (200%+) and leave room for the next guy to profit as the prices of new gtld premiums appreciate.
As long as the price of a premium ngtld is lower than the .com the ngtld domainer will benefit greatly due to the inefficiency in price. However, this kind of arbitrage will not last very long as legacy .com owners will be forced to bring down the prices of their premiums to remain competitive. This is how equilibrium will be found as one comes up the other must go down, correcting until they meet.
Ex.
Year 2017
Data.Center Renewal ($13.99)
$50k
DataCenter.com(Standard Renewal)
$1.5Million
Year 2018
Data.Center Renewal($13)
$100k
DataCenter.com (Standard Renewal)
$1.3Million
Year 2019
Data.Center($11) <----Agressive Renewal Price reductions begin
$200k
DataCenter.com(Standard Renewal)
$1.1 Million
Year 2020
Data.Center (Renewal $10)
$375k
DataCenter.com(Standard Renewal)
$900k
Year 2021
Data.Center(Renewal $9)
$550k
DataCenter.com (Standard Renewal)
$800k
Year 2022
Data.Center(Renewal $8.5 PRICE STABILIZES)
Price $650k
DataCentre.com(Standard Renewal)
Price $750k
Year 2023
Price Arbitrage for NGTLD domainers ends, New GTLD adoption completes. The end result will be reduced prices for domain names across ALL levels.
After this point .COM's will become less valuable than comparable new G's, this will happen near the end of their current price contract with ICANN in 2024.
Full Disclosure: I am 90% invested in .coms, the ngtlds I do hold however, are all long term positions and I will be continuing to add more in the coming months. I look for dropped ngtld premiums and occasionally purchase registry premiums that maintain regular renewal costs (no more than .IO renewal costs). I plan to reduce my portfolio size to 30 domains by the end of 2017 15 will be .com (a mixture of liquids and non english premiums) and 15 will be high quality ngtlds (I currently own emd ngtlds like Rapid.Repair and Fishing.Tools but I'm looking for better ones). I consider my cctld portfolio (.ca, .co.uk,.tv)to be a separate asset class. My plan isn't entirely rigid because...the future is uncertain but good balance will be beneficial in the long run.