discuss Are gTLDs affecting .Com price and growth

[Isac]

I think there is a decline in demand and price of .com domains because of new gTLDs. What's your opinion ?

 

[dordomai]

Ha, of all people.

"90% of the EU business is done by small and medium companies, ngtlds could fit them perfectly."

So not their own cctld, not .com but new gtlds usually comprised of English words?

The small Italian companies you mentioned were all Italian words, besides the mediaset.

First of all for each nGTLD you can create a matching .com and vice-versa, we are talking about doubling the supply. If we take into account that .co and .net exist we are talking about increasing supply by 1/3. That is not as much as they claim it is. Hundreds of extensions sounds impressive while in reality most are very niche like .irish or .rodeo

Second, increasing the supply is not good for anyone so if prices of .com go down because of increased supply their prices will decline as well. They somehow think everything that hurts .com is good for them while in reality it just hurts domains and their sales as well. If the market could be really flooded and .com destroyed there wouldn't be any winners left, except for a few large registries and ICANN. Certainly not domainers.

In reality, thinking this is just a question of supply/demand is wrong.

Interesting that they claim we are ignorant about economics and business while they ignore basic economic principles that they should know but conveniently ignore because of their investments.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/economicmoat.asp

The network effect can further fortify a company's economic moat by making its products valuable the more people use them. An example of a network effect is online marketplaces such as Amazon.com and eBay, which are widely popular among consumers because of the large quantity of people buying and selling various products through the platforms.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/firstmover.asp

First mover is a term that describes a certain competitive advantage a business obtains by virtue of being the first to bring a specific product or service to market. Among other things, being first typically enables a company to establish strong brand recognition and customer loyalty before other entrants to the market arise. Another advantage is the additional time a first mover business has to perfect or improve its product or service.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/brand-loyalty.asp

Brand loyalty is a pattern of consumer behavior where consumers become committed to brands and make repeat purchases from the same brands over time. Loyal customers consistently purchase products from their preferred brands, regardless of convenience or price.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in

In economics, vendor lock-in, also known as proprietary lock-in or customer lock-in, makes a customer dependent on a vendor for products and services, unable to use another vendor without substantial switching costs.

There is a reason why Warren Buffet the world's greatest investor owns 12% of the .com registry.

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/VRSN/holders?p=VRSN

 

[Kate]

There is a reason why Warren Buffet the world's greatest investor owns 12% of the .com registry.

I didn't know that...

 

[boker]

First of all for each nGTLD you can create a matching .com and vice-versa, we are talking about doubling the supply. If we take into account that .co and .net exist we are talking about increasing supply by 1/3. That is not as much as they claim it is. Hundreds of extensions sounds impressive while in reality most are very niche like .irish or .rodeo

Second, increasing the supply is not good for anyone so if prices of .com go down because of increased supply their prices will decline as well. They somehow think everything that hurts .com is good for them while in reality it just hurts domains and their sales as well. If the market could be really flooded and .com destroyed there wouldn't be any winners left, except for a few large registries and ICANN. Certainly not domainers.

In reality, thinking this is just a question of supply/demand is wrong.

Interesting that they claim we are ignorant about economics and business while they ignore basic economic principles that they should know but conveniently ignore because of their investments.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/economicmoat.asp



http://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/firstmover.asp



http://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/brand-loyalty.asp


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in



There is a reason why Warren Buffet the world's greatest investor owns 12% of the .com registry.

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/VRSN/holders?p=VRSN

I think you're right here, that increased supply will hurt prices for everyone, I never said that it will do any good for ngtlds, they will never sell for the high prices of .com, probably most of the sales will be xxx, and only around 10-20% xxxx. In the same time this will affect .com as well, what was selling for xxxxx will sell for xxx and what was xxxx will sell for xxx.
The network effect can have the other effect as well and probably this is what's scary, if .com investors will start moving to some other investments, the effect will trigger a lot of others leaving and in that moment it can't be stopped.
Brand loyalty is working in some cases, if that was 100% working all the time than gmail could not have a market share because of yahoo and others the same. Also, there were tens hundreds of companies or products who had monopoly, but lost everything in front of new companies and products. Check JVC, Yahoo, hi5, and there are hundreds of brands and products who had at one time close to 100% of market share and because of changes or because of consumers wanting something new, they lost big or even died. There is a reason why a lot of big shops, when they start loosing customers, they advertising that the shop it's under new management and they give it a new paint and customers start checking it out, to see what's new. For example, Arnotts in Dublin is the oldest 'shop' over 100 years and it was the first shop to go always, but when some new malls opened close by, they lost all their customers, because peoples are attracted by everything is new. You really think that facebook and twitter will survive forever?
Regarding .com investors, I can see in that list vanguard group and blackrock, companies who had they blame in the big collapse from 2007. Also Buffet himself lost during the collapse and it's not the only time when he lost, so that doesn't mean to much, he could loose the money invested in .com, important is that he is making more money from his investments than he loses.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2009/mar/01/warren-buffett-credit-crunch

 

[dordomai]

I didn't know that...

He has more investments in .com than everyone else here. Probably because he doesn't understand economics or he is too old to understand the new extensions.

 

[boker]

He has more investments in .com than everyone else here. Probably because he doesn't understand economics or he is too old to understand the new extensions.

Probably, because he was one of the investors asked to invest in facebook from the beginning, but he said that it doesn't have any future, probably the same thing he says about ngtlds. This is a quote from Buffet investment strategy: 'Buffett Generally Avoids Technology' and also 'He Also Tries to Avoid IPOs ', so is just a investment strategy, he invest in something just after he is 100% sure that it's safe, but he recognize that he missed a lot of opportunities. And because he understands economics, he lost more money than others loose in 10000 years, the idea is that he is loosing less than he's earning and that he's doing it at a big scale.

 

[Kate]

Brand loyalty is working in some cases, if that was 100% working all the time than gmail could not have a market share because of yahoo and others the same. Also, there were tens hundreds of companies or products who had monopoly, but lost everything in front of new companies and products.

It's not easy for a company to change name and/or domain name. Any rebranding is expensive and painful, sometimes fatal. So there is a lot of inertia.
And new extensions work exactly like the 'old' ones, so they bring nothing new technically. On the other hand they have pitfalls that old extensions do not.

You really think that facebook and twitter will survive forever?

No, but existing companies have little incentive to change extension. Unless it's for new projects, new sites, or new companies. When companies fail or fall out fashion it's seldom because of their name or TLD.

 

[boker]

It's not easy for a company to change name and/or domain name. Any rebranding is expensive and painful, sometimes fatal. So there is a lot of inertia.
And new extensions work exactly like the 'old' ones, so they bring nothing new technically. On the other hand they have pitfalls that old extensions do not.

No, but existing companies have little incentive to change extension. Unless it's for new projects, new sites, or new companies. When companies fail or fall out fashion it's seldom because of their name or TLD.

I was referring to facebook and twitter as in the place of .com, as facebook and twitter from their strong position will be replace, the same could happen with .com as well at some point.
I never said that facebook.com will use facebook.club, I'm sure that most of the ngtlds will be used by new companies and projects and even more, owned mostly by young business owners, but there are at least 6k startups born every day in the developed world, so there are enough end users for ngtlds, which will take some of the new customers that .com could have had.

 

[dordomai]

I was referring to facebook and twitter as in the place of .com, as facebook and twitter from their strong position will be replace, the same could happen with .com as well at some point.
I never said that facebook.com will use facebook.club, I'm sure that most of the ngtlds will be used by new companies and projects and even more, owned mostly by young business owners, but there are at least 6k startups born every day in the developed world, so there are enough end users for ngtlds, which will take some of the new customers that .com could have had.

yes but from a domainer perspective does it matter or should one invest in the new Gs?

If you look at .net which always had a certain amount of sales and development but always just a fraction of .com you see that .net rarely had huge sales happening, once you are the second or third choice it becomes hard to make money. That being said there are people doing well in .io, .tv etc. but not many so why bother if you can make money in .com?

Alternatives are far less likely to attract big sales regardless of the keyword. Loan.club will never sell for anything like loan.com not even a small fraction.

 

[boker]

yes but from a domainer perspective does it matter or should one invest in the new Gs?

If you look at .net which always had a certain amount of sales and development but always just a fraction of .com you see that .net rarely had huge sales happening, once you are the second or third choice it becomes hard to make money. That being said there are people doing well in .io, .tv etc. but not many so why bother if you can make money in .com?

But I'm talking about ngtlds being adopted in the future, not that they will bring the best ROI for a domainer, for sure the road is long and hard.
Also, I own around 40 .co' and I've sold 9 of them to end users, so you compare that I have a few hundred .com domains and I've made more money than selling .co, but the ROI is bigger for .co's than for com....so, I'm doing .com and .co's as well and some ngtlds and will do more in the future. So, if I would have decided to do just .com's, I would have lost some good cash coming from .co and ngtld...Also, there are tons of domainers loosing money with com and there are some losing money dealing just with 4L.com, so it's not like you're safe if you choose .com and this will be even more evident over the years, when you could loose even more excluding ngtlds

 

[obocar]

The thing with

python is a non-profit project and they are on .org why would they want .com?

Is that why you think .com is dying?

There will always be a few people who use .org.
Craigslist uses .org.
Now that the new gtld's are out, fewer will use thr ngtld.

 

[dordomai]

The sales charts answered this question. No. There are maybe 2 new TLDs in the sales charts. .Even net, .org and .co are easily beating the new Gs.

http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2017/20171018.htm

 

[LovingLife]

I think there is a decline in demand and price of .com domains because of new gTLDs. What's your opinion ?

Why pay the price for a .com when you can get the same name in a different extension.

 

[boker]

The sales charts answered this question. No. There are maybe 2 new TLDs in the sales charts. .Even net, .org and .co are easily beating the new Gs.

http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2017/20171018.htm

Maybe you should check dngeek or crunchbase to see the list of companies receiving funding of millions every week and how many of them are using a ngtld, every week there are anything between 1 and 3-4 companies, so if you count in the last 12 months there are 100-200 companies using ngtlds and receiving funding of millions.

 

[garptrader]

Maybe you should check dngeek or crunchbase to see the list of companies receiving funding of millions every week and how many of them are using a ngtld, every week there are anything between 1 and 3-4 companies, so if you count in the last 12 months there are 100-200 companies using ngtlds and receiving funding of millions.

Most startups are not buying aftermarket domains and rarely aftermarket nTLDs. They generally choose very poor quality domains available for reg fee - despite the millions of funding they have available. I have said this numerous times - companies spend thousands and thousands of dollars to market their business' products and services and thousands and thousands or dollars on ordinary business expenditures which are just part of doing business. But when it comes to choosing how people will refer to their business, they just pick whatever they can find available for reg fee. Would they do that with the management team or office space?

 

[dordomai]

Why pay the price for a .com when you can get the same name in a different extension.

why spend millions on branding when you can get your company brand IMega-Zone.biz for regfee?

 

[dordomai]

Maybe you should check dngeek or crunchbase to see the list of companies receiving funding of millions every week and how many of them are using a ngtld, every week there are anything between 1 and 3-4 companies, so if you count in the last 12 months there are 100-200 companies using ngtlds and receiving funding of millions.

http://dngeek.com/2017/10/91-newly-funded-startups-domain-names-ve-com-kudos-com-kolos-com/

Out of 101 domains only 2 were nGTLDs

Which tells us:

1. startups know that new Gs exist. They are tech savy.
2. They avoid them.

 

[boker]

http://dngeek.com/2017/10/91-newly-funded-startups-domain-names-ve-com-kudos-com-kolos-com/

Out of 101 domains only 2 were nGTLDs

Which tells us:

1. startups know that new Gs exist. They are tech savy.
2. They avoid them.

Yes, this is from the last week, but there are weeks when there are 4-5 startups using a ngtls. Also, If you check the same statistics from 5 years ago, you will notice that .com was used by over 90% of them and now the average is around 65%....so going on this road, in 3 years they will reach 50% and in 10 years they will be under 30%. Also, just the fact that between 100 and 200 of the startups in the last year have chosen a ngtlds when they could afford any tld, is saying something. You should keep in mind that we are talking about rich startups and they chose a ngtlds, if you check all the thousands born every day and which they don't have big pockets, than for sure the percentage is raising. Also, you should check some other forums for developers and see what's their opinion about ngtlds and if they will use ngtlds.

 

[dordomai]

Yes, this is from the last week, but there are weeks when there are 4-5 startups using a ngtls. Also, If you check the same statistics from 5 years ago, you will notice that .com was used by over 90% of them and now the average is around 65%....so going on this road, in 3 years they will reach 50% and in 10 years they will be under 30%. .

The usual lies.

Most of the non .com startups are local startups on a ccTLD. The ccTLD was always the first choice. We see more local startups on a ccTLD because the internet is growing around the globe not because .com is being less popular.

The reason why you see .com less in the list (percentage wise) is mainly because of local sites on a ccTLD not because .com is less popular among startups. There has been a trend towards .co and .io in the past years but isn't as big as you want to make it seem.

If they choose an alternative they use .io and .co and .ai The market tells us that they want short TLDs 3 letters or less. You have long TLDs 4 L or more that the market does not like. .longwords are not popular!

You talk about competing with .com and becoming the dominant extension. Perhaps you think first about how you can compete with .co and .io? They are eating you alive.

You live in fantasy land if you think a few years from now .com usage will be 30% and nGTLD usage 70%.

These extensions are out for almost 4 years and they are dead in the sales charts, completely dead. We have less sales compared to 2-3 years ago not more.

 

[boker]

The usual lies.

Most of the non .com startups are local startups on a ccTLD. The ccTLD was always the first choice. We see more local startups on a ccTLD because the internet is growing around the globe not because .com is being less popular.

The reason why you see .com less in the list (percentage wise) is mainly because of local sites on a ccTLD not because .com is less popular among startups. There has been a trend towards .co and .io in the past years but isn't as big as you want to make it seem.

If they choose an alternative they use .io and .co and .ai The market tells us that they want short TLDs 3 letters or less. You have long TLDs 4 L or more that the market does not like. .longwords are not popular!

You talk about competing with .com and becoming the dominant extension. Perhaps you think first about how you can compete with .co and .io? They are eating you alive.

You live in fantasy land if you think a few years from now .com usage will be 30% and nGTLD usage 70%.

These extensions are out for almost 4 years and they are dead in the sales charts, completely dead. We have less sales compared to 2-3 years ago not more.

It's a fact that it was 90% a few years ago and now the average is 65%. Also, I would like you to show me how many startups from the last few years have used 3L co or io or shorter. I don't know how many co's have you sold this year, I have sold 9 and all of them were 4 letter or more, one word dictionary words, I follow regularly these lists and I can't remember any 3L co or io, they could be some, but way less than you think. Also, you should check the revenue of most registries dealing with ngtls...for example for .guru they are 2 million profit, xyz owner has bought a few other ngtlds and is looking to buy others, you really think that they are loosing money? The fact that the domainers are not making money yet, it's true, but if domainers are not making money doesn't mean that they will not be successful. I can give you an example, there are eu cctlds where they are prohibited to be sold without the entire business, but that doesn't mean that people are not using them, just that domainers can't make to much money out of them.

 

[xynames]

Nobody in the U.S. buys another domain before considering a dot com first.

 

[dordomai]

Nobody in the U.S. buys another domain before considering a dot com first.

Nobody in Asia or Europe buys a domain before considering .com or ccTLD first.

It's a fact that it was 90% a few years ago and now the average is 65%. Also, I would like you to show me how many startups from the last few years have used 3L co or io or shorter.

You can read my previous post. The answer is already there.

 

[boker]

Nobody in Asia or Europe buys a domain before considering .com or ccTLD first.



You can read my previous post. The answer is already there.

Nobody in Europe buys before considering a cctld, 90% of them they don't care about .com, I own .com where the cctls is used by companies from Rusia, from Germany and other EU countries and they don't care about com, in one case I offered them for free and didn't wanted it.

 

[xynames]

In July 2017, just for example: I had an inquirer who contacted me about a dot com of mine and made a lowball offer of $500. for it, and had already registered the .us , .tax and .io exact equivalents of the domain name, and was trying to argue that these were just as good, he could just go with one of them and that he didn't even need my domain name, but I held firm, and eventually he came up to close to my price and he bought the dot com from me.

This is fact. Not theory like boker is theorizing about.

 

[boker]

In July 2017, just for example: I had an inquirer who contacted me about a dot com of mine and made a lowball offer of $500. for it, and had already registered the .us , .tax and .io exact equivalents of the domain name, and was trying to argue that these were just as good, he could just go with one of them and that he didn't even need my domain name, but I held firm, and eventually he came up to close to my price and he bought the dot com from me.

This is fact. Not theory like boker is theorizing about.

Yes, theory...when you sell a cctld to a EU company and you ask them if they don't want the .com as well and they say no, than you offer them to give them for free and they still say they that don't need it and you call this theory.

 

[GoKaizen]

There is, I admit, at this stage much greater mindshare for legacy tld's like .org and .net.

Colin Campbell,
CEO .CLUB Domains

Premium sales seem fine for registries. If you believe the reported sales.

These extensions are out for almost 4 years and they are dead in the sales charts, completely dead. We have less sales compared to 2-3 years ago not more.