new gtlds nGTLDs plateauing at 27-29million. Growth RATE has reduced by 90%

[betthelot]

nGTLDs plateauing at 27-29million. Growth RATE has reduced by 90% . 4million regged in first quarter 2016 but less than 300,000 in first two months of 2017.
Lots of free-minimum drops to come, rather than plateauing at 30 million could be the peak and down hill from here.
Clear winner .com and note .click over 60% of sites scanned were spam or harmful to your computer's health, this is the last refugee for many of these strings, even for Frank's vision.

 

[NigelD]

yes - they're probably afraid a big income stream might suddenly dry up

 

[wwwweb]

So if xyz registry wanted to regain their premium domains which sold for reg fee back, all they need to do is increase the price to $12,000 a year.

Lock in for 10 years you say? Well nobody is going to invest into a .xyz business knowing in 9 years their renewal is going to be $12,000 annually.

You see the loop hole that has just be exploited here. It is why people were skeptical about building on a gtld, they couldn't set a fair price, and just go with it.

This is dangerous framework that is being presented, it has the potential to derail the entire gtld process.

Nobody cares what domainers think, but can you imagine a small business who will probably not even get a notice of hike, going to renew their reg few name, and getting a $300 checkout.

They will drop it, and tell everyone they know their story, and off the cliff we roll.

 

[NigelD]

Must balance my previous post by saying I just noticed these two articles on DomainNameWire which are relevant and very informative and posted in last 24 hours:

Yikes! Is this a death spiral for new top level domain names?

How much it costs to run a domain name registry

 

[betthelot]

Nobody cares what domainers think, but can you imagine a small business who will probably not even get a notice of hike, going to renew their reg few name, and getting a $300 checkout.

They will drop it, and tell everyone they know their story, and off the cliff we roll.

Exactly small businesses get screwed royally, their target market. They don't have time to understand the small print, to understand what many people here have pointed out that these names are to at risk to punitive prices increases. They are going to choke on their morning coffee when they get the renewal bill and think it's a scam. And when they find out it's not a scam but legal, they will shout BS to anyone who will listen.

 

[dordomai]

So if xyz registry wanted to regain their premium domains which sold for reg fee back, all they need to do is increase the price to $12,000 a year.

Lock in for 10 years you say? Well nobody is going to invest into a .xyz business knowing in 9 years their renewal is going to be $12,000 annually.

.

it could be far worse.. an investor could have bought a premium .xyz at auction for 5 figures.

In theory(I don't think they would do this) they could decide that the premium domain is not making them enough money and increase the fee to $12k/year.

I don't think we will see this type of extortion anytime soon, it would harm them far more than what could be gained from that but it is not impossible under the current framework I think.

In theory they could even do this to domains sold by them at premium prices.

They could sell a domain for 5k and $10 renewal and 2 years later ask $500/year renewal.

Either they pay or they lose the domain. The registry does not need to inform investors about pricing changes.

In many cases the registrar might alert the registrant and they could still renew for 10 years in advance(in theory but perhaps the registry would not allow it?) but honestly do you think an end-user would want to buy a domain that will cost them at least $xxx/year after 10 years(future prices hikes not included)?

In my opinion what will be more affected will be the drops. If a good name drops or expires it will already have a premium renewal added.

No dropcatching under this system. Registry will take back all valuable names.

 

[wwwweb]

it could be far worse.. an investor could have bought a premium .xyz at auction for 5 figures.

In theory(I don't think they would do this) they could decide that the premium domain is not making them enough money and increase the fee to $12k/year.

I don't think we will see this type of extortion anytime soon, it would harm them far more than what could be gained from that but it is not impossible under the current framework I think.

In theory they could even do this to domains sold by them at premium prices.

They could sell a domain for 5k and $10 renewal and 2 years later ask $500/year renewal.

Either they pay or they lose the domain. The registry does not need to inform investors about pricing changes.

In many cases the registrar might alert the registrant and they could still renew for 10 years in advance(in theory but perhaps the registry would not allow it?) but honestly do you think an end-user would want to buy a domain that will cost them at least $xxx/year after 10 years(future prices hikes not included)?

In my opinion what will be more affected will be the drops. If a good name drops or expires it will already have a premium renewal added.

No dropcatching under this system. Registry will take back all valuable names.

Donuts has been doing this for months, taking back drops they see as high value back into their reserved status.

I agree it is not wise to do this, but if an extension is desperate enough they could essentially force the surrender of their domains by using this scenario.

Everyday small businsss owners are not up to date on domain news, by the time they figure it out, they will be forced to drop.

These names could be then sold a second time for a one time premium price with a low renewal.

Hence rinse, and repeat, the framework of gtlds always left such loopholes opened, nobody thought anyone would ever consider exploiting them.

Gtlds are essentially a liability in owning, it was always perceived, but now it is becoming a reality.

 

[betthelot]

No dropcatching under this system. Registry will take back all valuable names.

Another good point that I hadn't thought about. Kills the reseller market. Domainers completely taken out the ecosystem.
It's the biggest wake up call to all investors in this space.

 

[wwwweb]

Another good point that I hadn't thought about. Kills the reseller market. Domainers completely taken out the ecosystem.
It's the biggest wake up call to all investors in this space.

When registeries are owned by domainers, why do they need outside domainers taking their margins?

 

[betthelot]

When registeries are owned by domainers, why do they need outside domainers taking their margins?

Because they create awareness, they evangelise to the masses the existence of these new names and what was a cheaper option to similar short .coms. In short they leverage your marketing. But that's all gone as of yesterday.

 

[NigelD]

Quite clear that marketing will now be cut. Consumers haven't taken to the ngtlds - just domainers - and they'll now be licking their wounds. You soon might need to rename this thread betthelot - plateauing might be too kind a word to describe the ngtlds - take out the 1 cent xyz pump and the graph would look a lot different.

 

[dordomai]

all registries that premium price are domainers

 

[GoKaizen]

Pulling all my domains off Uniregistry marketplace.

Everyone must do this.

 

[MasterOfMyDomains]

I am doing the same thing. Everything is going back to sedo. Bye Frank, hope you end up floating in the same boat as your buddy Adam Dicker the rip off artist

 

[betthelot]

I think there will be some kind of backlash. Is halo has fallen but to be fair to Frank he never asked to be revered it was somewhat thrusted on him

 

[LeDomain]

What's the next shoe to drop, who is the next registry that's going to have to rethink their plans.

Each tld has probably less than 1000 premium possibilities and looks like the registries want to hang on to them. So in the end, most of these tlds are Registry to Consumer direct sale anyway. Domainers are left with combinations that would be so tough to sell and will be at low prices. You can't get ahead doing that volume game. Why did domainers get all excited for such a small niche concept.

Nobody asked consumers if they are willing to change their behavior online. Assuming domainers know what consumers want has shown to be a huge mistake time and again.

 

[Akilina]

Read on Onlinedomain.com Frank Schilling just killed the New gTLD domain name program (Warning!)

that incredibly, according to ICANN rules, registrars don’t even have to inform registrants of the price hike.

This means that registrants won’t be aware of the price hike until they get a renewal bill at just about the time of renewal in which case there will be insufficient time to register another domain name and transfer their website and emails, so they will be stuck.

The most worrying thing is that maybe some domains were registered and are on auto-renewal.

Please tell me that auto-renewal isn't automatically activated on some of these domain names.

 

[NigelD]

You would hope that the registrars would warn their clients before dipping in.

 

[betthelot]

You would hope that the registrars would warn their clients before dipping in.

And lose on a sale if it's set to auto renewal. I think they will make it known but not in a clear do you want to renewal at this prices yes or no but in small print to cover themselves

 

[Alessandro Couteau]

"Frank just crashed the GTLD domain name program ?"

What is this CNN ? These acquisitions are a boat load for sure, and the funny thing is the presence of any GTLD investors remarking on this scenario are lacking there of

Pardon my response, but do the "only TLD" investors really need to build up their self esteem amongst one and other ? We're constantly accusing everyone else and what does it matter, if you did not invest when you could have, then you should not be calling out GTLDs based on a statement by Frank

I mean come on guys, what did you think Frank was going to say when questioned ? "Oh yea, we're definitely going to start working with the domain investors and the resellers and while we're at it, how about we cut GTLD renewals by %50 ?" Hahahaha, I mean honestly, if you owned a registrar you as well would be working to make your registrar more money, call it greed, call it human instinct, these kind of statements that Frank made are clearly strategic, not in the minds of investors or resellers but in the minds of someone who wants to make money from these names on an actual business instead of waiting for it to liquidate ...
Rising prices will have have outcomes that Frank is fully aware of, "you think he doesn't know that he is going to lose a lot of followers because of that statement ?" Of course he does, but he is willing to sacrifice his love for investors to invite the margins of business owners who at this very moment recognize one thing, money ...
and you don't see Ralph Lauren shopping at the dollar store, and you don't see Barclays selling credit cards to homeless people ... They understand money and some of these raised in renewals will represent a counterpart of new investors, new endusers, people who will see the money and realize this is not a candy store and it never was ...

GTLDs in liquidity is like a glacier melting, takes a long time ... TLDs in liquidity are like butter ... We all know what is faster in the market ^ but there won't be enough butter for every business owner or investor, especially with the statements @shayan made regarding the true demographics of this industry ...
3,000,000,000 internet users >>>
I would challenge anyone to write 3,000,000,000 combinations for .com ... It gets challenging by just 100,000,000 I'm sure

You cannot crash a market like this, this idea won't die and I am sure most of us will argue for ten years before we see any actual resolve by endusers becoming "fully" aware of GTLDs ... So why wait that long ?

Who wants to do that ... Start developing so the idea becomes more relevant to the owners of business' ... Period

 

[wwwweb]

"Frank just crashed the GTLD domain name program ?"

What is this CNN ? These acquisitions are a boat load for sure, and the funny thing is the presence of any GTLD investors remarking on this scenario are lacking there of

Pardon my response, but do the "only TLD" investors really need to build up their self esteem amongst one and other ? We're constantly accusing everyone else and what does it matter, if you did not invest when you could have, then you should not be calling out GTLDs based on a statement by Frank

I mean come on guys, what did you think Frank was going to say when questioned ? "Oh yea, we're definitely going to start working with the domain investors and the resellers and while we're at it, how about we cut GTLD renewals by %50 ?" Hahahaha, I mean honestly, if you owned a registrar you as well would be working to make your registrar more money, call it greed, call it human instinct, these kind of statements that Frank made are clearly strategic, not in the minds of investors or resellers but in the minds of someone who wants to make money from these names on an actual business instead of waiting for it to liquidate ...
Rising prices will have have outcomes that Frank is fully aware of, "you think he doesn't know that he is going to lose a lot of followers because of that statement ?" Of course he does, but he is willing to sacrifice his love for investors to invite the margins of business owners who at this very moment recognize one thing, money ...
and you don't see Ralph Lauren shopping at the dollar store, and you don't see Barclays selling credit cards to homeless people ... They understand money and some of these raised in renewals will represent a counterpart of new investors, new endusers, people who will see the money and realize this is not a candy store and it never was ...

GTLDs in liquidity is like a glacier melting, takes a long time ... TLDs in liquidity are like butter ... We all know what is faster in the market ^ but there won't be enough butter for every business owner or investor, especially with the statements @shayan made regarding the true demographics of this industry ...
3,000,000,000 internet users >>>
I would challenge anyone to write 3,000,000,000 combinations for .com ... It gets challenging by just 100,000,000 I'm sure

You cannot crash a market like this, this idea won't die and I am sure most of us will argue for ten years before we see any actual resolve by endusers becoming "fully" aware of GTLDs ... So why wait that long ?

Who wants to do that ... Start developing so the idea becomes more relevant to the owners of business' ... Period

I own both .com, and gtld's, I even own one that makes 4 figures parking income annually.

Why do you think Chinese investors like to purchase homes in Vancouver, Australia, California because they know what they are getting. Strong demand, good political climate, stable communities.

With .com we get the same characteristics, now with GTLD's, the open wording of the contracts has always been open for discussion. Maybe some i's, and t's were not dotted, and crossed as accurately as they should have, and ICANN should be held accountable for that.

The fact that someone can raise the price on you 3000% without even informing you, says something. It is troubling, with all the technology, and communication we have at our fingertips these days, there is no place for this sort of stuff in 2017.

I will tell you right now, I have more invested in G's than you, but I have to be realistic, and speak the truth, regardless of my personal investments. I am accountable for my investments, but I guess most were lucky that North Sound domains reserved many of the good names, so I don't have to many under this company.

The principal of the matter is troubling though, if we see others following. I am going to assume this is not going to end well, and other companies will wait to see how it works out, and take it from there.

For whatever reason people tend to think that just because a company is a billion dollar corporation, they have millions of dollars to throw at domain names. It just does not always work like that.

I don't sell domains to many domainers, so I don't care, most end users will not be up on daily domain news, so life goes on for now. This will trickle down, and people will avoid them, that is the sad part, as everything the GTLD's were released for is falling by the wayside.

 

[NigelD]

Thing is Alessandro - Uniregistry have shown how uncertain the ngtlds are. In his interview Frank Schilling said he was introducing these increases to 'keep the lights on' - that hardly installs confidence in new extensions.

I think people will use ngtlds in the future but they'll be for ad campaigns or thin sites. Domainers will be squeezed out as prices go up, sales to end users evaporate, and losses stack up. We're spending some time at the moment building a .co.uk website for the uk market, and we'd have been comfortable using a .com, but no way would we invest time and effort over a number of years building on one of these ngtlds. You'd be mad to do that.

 

[dordomai]

3,000,000,000 internet users >>>
I would challenge anyone to write 3,000,000,000 combinations for .com ... It gets challenging by just 100,000,000 I'm sure

1.Most internet users will never get a domain. It assumes, internet user = domain registrant.
2. Non US people will get their ccTLD not an English language new TLD.
3. Even if 3 billion people buy domains, .com prices would go up so dramatically(because of scarcity) that .coms would be the best investment ever with very little risk(and holding costs)
4. It assumes that the average internet user joe in India for example would pay premium prices for your TLDs just to get his personal domain name.. if this were to happen you wouldn't need to speculate in the new TLDs, eternal 20 year gold rush in all extensions, everyone would get rich.

 

[betthelot]

We're spending some time at the moment building a .co.uk website for the uk market, and we'd have been comfortable using a .com, but no way would we invest time and effort over a number of years building on one of these ngtlds. You'd be mad to do that.

You are speaking for many an enduser, that they would be mad to build a site on a nGTLDs, given rents can increase by 3,000 percent overnight. That's what it all boils down to, no endusers no market no business. You are left just selling to big corporations as defensive brand registrations, that they will never use.
We will end up with a 1000 Zombie strings that no one cares about.
What a debacle by ICANN, at least they will be ready when they renegotiate the .com net org contracts - be the first condition in the terms, limited or no wholesale price rises.

 

[MapleDots]

I am doing the same thing. Everything is going back to sedo. Bye Frank, hope you end up floating in the same boat as your buddy Adam Dicker the rip off artist

YOU SAID IT BROTHER

 

[Alessandro Couteau]

I own both .com, and gtld's, I even own one that makes 4 figures parking income annually.

Why do you think Chinese investors like to purchase homes in Vancouver, Australia, California because they know what they are getting. Strong demand, good political climate, stable communities.

With .com we get the same characteristics, now with GTLD's, the open wording of the contracts has always been open for discussion. Maybe some i's, and t's were not dotted, and crossed as accurately as they should have, and ICANN should be held accountable for that.

The fact that someone can raise the price on you 3000% without even informing you, says something. It is troubling, with all the technology, and communication we have at our fingertips these days, there is no place for this sort of stuff in 2017.

I will tell you right now, I have more invested in G's than you, but I have to be realistic, and speak the truth, regardless of my personal investments. I am accountable for my investments, but I guess most were lucky that North Sound domains reserved many of the good names, so I don't have to many under this company.

The principal of the matter is troubling though, if we see others following. I am going to assume this is not going to end well, and other companies will wait to see how it works out, and take it from there.

For whatever reason people tend to think that just because a company is a billion dollar corporation, they have millions of dollars to throw at domain names. It just does not always work like that.

I don't sell domains to many domainers, so I don't care, most end users will not be up on daily domain news, so life goes on for now. This will trickle down, and people will avoid them, that is the sad part, as everything the GTLD's were released for is falling by the wayside.

I will congratulate you on being a smart investor and further more, please note, I am not defending the actions of Frank but I am simply speaking the truth, "what did you expect him to say ?"

Better yet, we're discussing someone we believe makes an impact on the future of GTLDs ... No offense to Frank, but I do not believe his word has that kind of power no matter his history or his sales from Uniregistry ... Uniregistry does not control all GTLDs and they also do not own the most popular extensions at the moment ...

But ^ and this is important, Frank just said, what any of us would say in a stressful situation ... Clearly he doesn't want GTLDs to end up like Daniel Negari and the .xyz Penny Sales, But he also has recognized the most popular GTLDs and has isolated them in a price point which is fair to the market to investors ... I mean, did anyone bother looking at the extensions that are going up %3000 ? I did not see .tv or .club or .xyz going up in price ... He is specifically targeting domain extensions that should not be kept afloat but no matter the circumstances they will be to make the registrar some money until they decide to recycle the extension,

.christmas ... Why don't we have a .halloween while we are at it ...
$100 renewal for this ^ is really not high ... That's less then $10 a month ... If you have kids, you give your kids lunch money for school equalivalent to three times to six times that amount ^
Should this be priced at $100 a year, no, I don't believe so, but it's a price point that will attract the unknowing investors and the holiday spirited endusers ... And I don't own a .christmas and I don't plan to, so why does that even matter ...

These renewals being implimented should be,

better heard then understood ...

investors won't like this because they believe it undermines the integrity of this business, assuming that Frank is someone like Adam Dicker, is none sense ...

What would you do in their situation ? and if anything, we're not the ones getting screwed on these horrendous extensions ... they are the ones who invested tens of millions in hopes to make tens of millions or even hundreds of millions

Again it's a gamble, some will win and some will lose ...

Eventually though, these names will be recycled into a new owner or a new registrar and a new registrar that will price them adequately