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new gtlds Pull up your sleeves, you new G's

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HotKey

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For the 3rd time in 6 months, watching the ol' tee-vee and wouldn't you know, on comes a Go Daddy commercial, with surprise surprise, promoting .guesswhatyesdot-com

I have yet to see another registrar or registry produce something like this for new G's, or anything for that matter.

So essentially, what we have here, is the maximum exposure on prime time television. 3 times in 6 months. Resulting in Mom and Pop knowing only three things:

- to buy a domain
- and there is only one extension
- all at one registrar

GD.

Soo, what the heck is every other registry and registrar doing to combat this monopolization? Nothing. No sleeves being pulled up, nothing being invested in main-stream television advertising by them.

I mean, comeon, get to work people. Investors pulling up our sleeves, but we seem to be the only ones. We have limited resources in educating the masses. To generate mass appeal on new products, we need exposure from the source, or even places like talk shows. Eg. Ellen or Jimmy Fallon. Else we're looking at a 50 year adoption rate. I mean slow and steady winds the race, but that slow??

When you have prime-time exposure, you don't have to worry about the distractors sitting around in circles singing kum ba yah and moaning and groaning how the non-coms don't get traffic, there's no comparables and oh no they are soo confusing. We don't need this mantra as new G investors. I would prefer if you're not willing to be educated, at the very least offer something constructive that improves to what we're building.

I realize Verisign is pooping cash, which helps them inject funds to, well, help them poop more cash, but surely the people who run new extensions had more than just the initial capital of 180k to acquire the new G?

They can't make something on the magnitude of a domain extension and expect people to just know about it. Particularly when up against an almost 40 year old behemoth.

So what's the problem? Are there vested interests that are attempting to bury new adoption? Or are these new registries really that cash-strapped? Whatever it is, looks like it continues to be up to us to roll up our sleeves and plug on. But until more excitement is generated, my weight will be on current stock rather than new acquisitions.
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
Is there exposure through any online channels? Not something I have looked into...
 
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For the 3rd time in 6 months, watching the ol' tee-vee and wouldn't you know, on comes a Go Daddy commercial, with surprise surprise, promoting .guesswhatyesdot-com

I have yet to see another registrar or registry produce something like this for new G's, or anything for that matter.

So essentially, what we have here, is the maximum exposure on prime time television. 3 times in 6 months. Resulting in Mom and Pop knowing only three things:

- to buy a domain
- and there is only one extension
- all at one registrar

GD.

Soo, what the heck is every other registry and registrar doing to combat this monopolization? Nothing. No sleeves being pulled up, nothing being invested in main-stream television advertising by them.

I mean, comeon, get to work people. Investors pulling up our sleeves, but we seem to be the only ones. We have limited resources in educating the masses. To generate mass appeal on new products, we need exposure from the source, or even places like talk shows. Eg. Ellen or Jimmy Fallon. Else we're looking at a 50 year adoption rate. I mean slow and steady winds the race, but that slow??

When you have prime-time exposure, you don't have to worry about the distractors sitting around in circles singing kum ba yah and moaning and groaning how the non-coms don't get traffic, there's no comparables and oh no they are soo confusing. We don't need this mantra as new G investors. I would prefer if you're not willing to be educated, at the very least offer something constructive that improves to what we're building.

I realize Verisign is pooping cash, which helps them inject funds to, well, help them poop more cash, but surely the people who run new extensions had more than just the initial capital of 180k to acquire the new G?

They can't make something on the magnitude of a domain extension and expect people to just know about it. Particularly when up against an almost 40 year old behemoth.

So what's the problem? Are there vested interests that are attempting to bury new adoption? Or are these new registries really that cash-strapped? Whatever it is, looks like it continues to be up to us to roll up our sleeves and plug on. But until more excitement is generated, my weight will be on current stock rather than new acquisitions.

There is lot of truth in this. Let's take NamePros as an example....world's largest site for domain investors, and only very few representatives of new gTLD registries are actively here .. and what does it cost really to post few articles or some valuable information here, really? It costs nothing, only some time and some energy, of course.

Well, recently I was nicely surprised by .best registry representative came here, and gave us good and valuable information we asked for. But it would be certainly very nice if we would see more of such activities by others as well :)
 
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The NewG industry as a whole has completely blundered any marketing efforts. There has been certain campaigns for specific extensions, but it did not raise public awareness in scale.

It's no surprise there has been a high turnover ratio in upper level management for the NewG's.

The NewG industry should work together and do more co-op marketing. Make a splash, together. Build a foundation, together...But, realistically, the money coffers are tightening up, employees are jumping ship, time is running out and each extension is laboriously working to stay afloat on it's own merit......

(Disclaimer - I own some NewG's, not enough to change a lifestyle, but enough to have an understanding)
 
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For the 3rd time in 6 months, watching the ol' tee-vee and wouldn't you know, on comes a Go Daddy commercial, with surprise surprise, promoting .guesswhatyesdot-com

I have yet to see another registrar or registry produce something like this for new G's, or anything for that matter.

So essentially, what we have here, is the maximum exposure on prime time television. 3 times in 6 months. Resulting in Mom and Pop knowing only three things:

- to buy a domain
- and there is only one extension
- all at one registrar

GD.

Soo, what the heck is every other registry and registrar doing to combat this monopolization? Nothing. No sleeves being pulled up, nothing being invested in main-stream television advertising by them.

I mean, comeon, get to work people. Investors pulling up our sleeves, but we seem to be the only ones. We have limited resources in educating the masses. To generate mass appeal on new products, we need exposure from the source, or even places like talk shows. Eg. Ellen or Jimmy Fallon. Else we're looking at a 50 year adoption rate. I mean slow and steady winds the race, but that slow??

When you have prime-time exposure, you don't have to worry about the distractors sitting around in circles singing kum ba yah and moaning and groaning how the non-coms don't get traffic, there's no comparables and oh no they are soo confusing. We don't need this mantra as new G investors. I would prefer if you're not willing to be educated, at the very least offer something constructive that improves to what we're building.

I realize Verisign is pooping cash, which helps them inject funds to, well, help them poop more cash, but surely the people who run new extensions had more than just the initial capital of 180k to acquire the new G?

They can't make something on the magnitude of a domain extension and expect people to just know about it. Particularly when up against an almost 40 year old behemoth.

So what's the problem? Are there vested interests that are attempting to bury new adoption? Or are these new registries really that cash-strapped? Whatever it is, looks like it continues to be up to us to roll up our sleeves and plug on. But until more excitement is generated, my weight will be on current stock rather than new acquisitions.

It's just not worth the investment in most cases. Most of these are niche extensions, will never have big numbers. Spend x to get what back in return? Then development is where most people will even know these exist. But low reg numbers means low development. I still have 0 sites on new gtlds in my bookmarks. I think they will end up being something that just gets sold back and forth between domainers.

Pick one, let's say .cricket which is at 16,595.

How much would you spend on that, where, and how many new regs do you think would come from that spend? It seems it would be hard to get a return on most of these.
 
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I tend to agree with @JB Lions assessment that it is a numbers game really. In the Verisign 2018 Q3 report the increase in all ngTLDs combined was about 1.6 million registrations while com+net combined had an increase of 9.5 million registrations for the same period. Also, GoDaddy do relatively better in the .com than they do in the new extension space, so for them the numbers are probably even more skewed. Now you could argue that the numbers are more skewed because of their advertising, sort of a chicken and egg thing.

I agree that while some registries have done better than others, that most have done a terrible job of introducing new extensions or promoting existing ones. I think the single most important thing to do is to highlight sites on their extension that are authentic meaningful content, especially by leaders in that space. DESIGN did not do too badly, and APP and DEV could have been even better but certainly were much sounder introductions than most ngTLDs.

It is a somewhat unusual situation that a single registrar does almost all of the advertising about domain names, at least all of the North American offline advertising. It is just a different business model I guess, but yes most general public can't name a registrar other than Go Daddy.

I strongly agree with @Internet.Domains re this >
The NewG industry should work together and do more co-op marketing

For the most part I think that different extensions are not competing with each other but rather with things like Wix and FB pages, etc. and choices not to have a domain and website. As such, more industry cooperation would be to everyone's benefit.

Bob
 
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I believe the model that was originally adopted for New gTLD renewals was a little flawed, even if a CEO or end-user likes to go with New gTLDs and is willing to pay five or six figures to acquire one, but the thought that one has to pay a huge amount in renewals year after year kind of puts people off.

Although many Registrars are now showing New gTLDs as alternative choices to their customers, but I like the idea that there needs to be more promotions on TV commercials for New gTLDs by the Registries themselves as a group or as a Trade Association. IMO
 
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Another activity new gTLD registries could definitely do to more promote new gTLDs among domain investors is very simple: just to regularly report their sales to sources like namebio.com or dnpric.es.
It is not that much effort I believe, and it is again completely for free.

There are some registries like .global which are doing fantastic job in this area, but imagine what would happen if more would follow that...I really believe new gTLD sales are hugely under-reported, and typical domain investor here at Namepros will look at namebio .. and if no sales reported for particular extension there, this can put many of people off.

I am aware of lot of new gTLD extensions where large amount of sales were made by registries, and they are not reported in sources like namebio or dnpric.es.

Also, if new gTLD registries are selling name with, let's say $1000 / year renewal via the network of cooperating registrars, that itself should be reported as well (at least as typical $1000 sale, although sale of name with $1000 / year renewal is much more valuable, as it is $1000 for each year of registration of such name).

At the moment, so many of those sales are not beying reported.... this is quite a pitty imo, and there is really lot of place for improvement there :)
 
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Another activity new gTLD registries could definitely do to more promote new gTLDs among domain investors is very simple: just to regularly report their sales to sources like namebio.com or dnpric.es.
It is not that much effort I believe, and it is again completely for free.

There are some registries like .global which are doing fantastic job in this area, but imagine what would happen if more would follow that...I really believe new gTLD sales are hugely under-reported, and typical domain investor here at Namepros will look at namebio .. and if no sales reported for particular extension there, this can put many of people off.

I am aware of lot of new gTLD extensions where large amount of sales were made by registries, and they are not reported in sources like namebio or dnpric.es.

Also, if new gTLD registries are selling name with, let's say $1000 / year renewal via the network of cooperating registrars, that itself should be reported as well (at least as typical $1000 sale, although sale of name with $1000 / year renewal is much more valuable, as it is $1000 for each year of registration of such name).

At the moment, so many of those sales are not beying reported.... this is quite a pitty imo, and there is really lot of place for improvement there :)
I see your point, however I don't feel reported sales is what the NewG's need. Reported sales are only important to domain investors. The public and end users don't care what my .app sold for.

NewG's need both end user development and public awareness. People need to know they exist. People need to know there is more than .com, and in fact that there is more than .club and .global. People need to know there is an entire library of extensions, not just .security and .cars, etc, etc....

End users need to know they can develop on a NewG because the public is aware of them. Adoption begins with both public awareness and end user development. Adoption does not begin because .xyz went on a marketing spree. Adoption does not begin because .Global reports sales. Adoption does not begin because Donuts says .com's are obsolete as they call themselves "Non-.com."

Adoption can only begin when the NewG registries work together, work as one, work for all. NewG adoption is not about just one extension, it is about the public understanding that there are many extensions. Awareness does not begin with one extension, it only becomes viable when people understand that there are many extensions.

The only way for both public awareness and end user adoption is for those involved in the NewG industry to work together, not against each other.
 
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Another activity new gTLD registries could definitely do to more promote new gTLDs among domain investors is very simple: just to regularly report their sales to sources like namebio.com or dnpric.es.
It is not that much effort I believe, and it is again completely for free.

There are some registries like .global which are doing fantastic job in this area, but imagine what would happen if more would follow that...I really believe new gTLD sales are hugely under-reported, and typical domain investor here at Namepros will look at namebio .. and if no sales reported for particular extension there, this can put many of people off.

I am aware of lot of new gTLD extensions where large amount of sales were made by registries, and they are not reported in sources like namebio or dnpric.es.

I guess one question is why should the registry report their sales, if you are not willing to report yours?

You have said multiple times you are not willing to share your sales for various reasons, so they might be in the same boat.

Brad
 
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Adoption can only begin when the NewG registries work together, work as one, work for all. NewG adoption is not about just one extension, it is about the public understanding that there are many extensions. Awareness does not begin with one extension, it only becomes viable when people understand that there are many extensions.

The only way for both public awareness and end user adoption is for those involved in the NewG industry to work together, not against each other.

That is never going to happen. There are too many different agendas, personalities, business models, etc.

In a large way it is a zero sum game as they are all fighting for a small piece of the small piece of total new gTLDs.

Brad
 
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That is never going to happen. There are too many different agendas, personalities, business models, etc.

In a large way it is a zero sum game as they are all fighting for a small piece of the small piece of total new gTLDs.

Brad
I agree. I just had to vent...:xf.grin:
 
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It is not worth spending a lot of money promoting a product known to sell badly.

You want to see this happen? You pay for the ads!
 
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There is lot of truth in this. Let's take NamePros as an example....world's largest site for domain investors, and only very few representatives of new gTLD registries are actively here .. and what does it cost really to post few articles or some valuable information here, really? It costs nothing, only some time and some energy, of course.

I would've thought you were doing enough promotion alone ;)
 
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Godaddy are certainly very active on UK television, Almost as often as our most popular toothpaste and washing-up liquids. No mention on ntlds though
 
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Godaddy are certainly very active on UK television, Almost as often as our most popular toothpaste and washing-up liquids. No mention on ntlds though

That’s good news.
 
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Is there exposure through any online channels? Not something I have looked into...
Yes there is, via Youtube videos, maybe other methods, but overall the viewership and results are not encouraging.

The problem I see with online-only exposure is this:

1) We have to search for it. How do we search for something that we don't know exists?
2) Advertising is customized users previous searches, but again, how to recommend ads that have never been searched for?
3) Online advertsing imo is a massive flop. Because most all of it is seen as spammy, doesn't connect with our emotions, and is very easy to overlook or ignore.
4) Reaching out to our social media contacts is the same result, particularly with with thousands of followers or friends or what not. Yes the eyes are there, but in all our own little hustle remains just that, people might see it in their feed, but it truly doesn't connect with them.

Television is still by far and large the only way to get things moving along, because you can create content that is exciting, emotional and truly connects with your audience. Very difficult to ignore an engaging commercial. I've seen Wix and GD commercials, both excellent jobs.

There has been some usage of a new G addresses with other promos on TV, but it hasn't been handled properly. The new G address is always shown at the end of the commercial, just slapped on there as if Mom and Pop are supposed to know that its an internet address or a website. I mean it's great and all, but these promos are from business endusers, and their priority is the business itself, not educating the masses on the vehicle being used to get there.
 
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Yes there is, via Youtube videos, maybe other methods, but overall the viewership and results are not encouraging.

The problem I see with online-only exposure is this:

1) We have to search for it. How do we search for something that we don't know exists?
2) Advertising is customized users previous searches, but again, how to recommend ads that have never been searched for?
3) Online advertsing imo is a massive flop. Because most all of it is seen as spammy, doesn't connect with our emotions, and is very easy to overlook or ignore.
4) Reaching out to our social media contacts is the same result, particularly with with thousands of followers or friends or what not. Yes the eyes are there, but in all our own little hustle remains just that, people might see it in their feed, but it truly doesn't connect with them.

Television is still by far and large the only way to get things moving along, because you can create content that is exciting, emotional and truly connects with your audience. Very difficult to ignore an engaging commercial. I've seen Wix and GD commercials, both excellent jobs.

There has been some usage of a new G addresses with other promos on TV, but it hasn't been handled properly. The new G address is always shown at the end of the commercial, just slapped on there as if Mom and Pop are supposed to know that its an internet address or a website. I mean it's great and all, but these promos are from business endusers, and their priority is the business itself, not educating the masses on the vehicle being used to get there.
Nice reply - thanks

They are promoting New Gtld's - what about... New G's for a New Generation, as a strap line?

This could be for new brand for an existing company or target start up's, any new business etc. The world is changing and marketing your products and services can be done very effectively now in different ways

Target
University Incubators
Angel Investing Networks
Brand Consultants
Marketing VP's & Directors - this could be through advertising at round table discussions, workshops, PR events, Marketing events etc

In a nut shell get the word out in ways your competitors might not thought of and be seen as a specialist in your field - kinda the whole point of Gtd's?

The above is not exhaustive and would be the be all and end all, but there is so many different options out there and it looks like they are not doing much of anything....
 
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I mean, comeon, get to work people. Investors pulling up our sleeves, but we seem to be the only ones.
Really ? Everybody talks about development but unless domainers are building great websites on nTLDs, that people will add to their bookmarks, all they are doing is helping the registries financially. Domains that are parked for sale do nothing to enhance an extension, they increase the rate of non-usage and have a detrimental effect overall.

I think the only way a TLD can take off is when it's got a clear identity, is backed by a community or has a clear market. But it's going to remain a niche market. Vast majority of released strings are not all-purpose extensions, so they can never be big and attain critical mass. They will forever remain in the shadows of bigger extensions.

Even industry-specific TLDs that are sponsored by industry bodies are not getting much traction from members eg .aero .museum or even .realtor. Even when you give them away for the first year.

What do you think happens when you released hundreds of TLDs and make them compete against one another for a share of a small pie ? Don't tell me you are surprised.

It reminds very much of the .mobi discussions, when people were blaming the registry for not doing enough to promote the extension.
Who is at fault when a product doesn't sell because there is no market for it ?

You have said multiple times you are not willing to share your sales for various reasons, so they might be in the same boat.
Must be because of the IRS and unreported income :xf.grin:
 
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I guess one question is why should the registry report their sales, if you are not willing to report yours?

You have said multiple times you are not willing to share your sales for various reasons, so they might be in the same boat.

Brad
Brad, lol, this is a global internet revolution in dns system, and new gTLDs should be presented to billions of internet users, and tens of thousands of domain investors. I believe we both can agree that such global effort can not depend on whether individual private investors like me (some guy from Prague) will share or not share their private financial data.

The one of few new gTLD investor here on Namepros that shares his sales regularly is to my best knowledge very experienced @Fancy.domains , and this is very generous from him! But even him can not save all the new gTLD industry, so registries have lot of room to contribute in this area :)
 
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I see your point, however I don't feel reported sales is what the NewG's need. Reported sales are only important to domain investors. The public and end users don't care what my .app sold for.

NewG's need both end user development and public awareness. People need to know they exist. People need to know there is more than .com, and in fact that there is more than .club and .global. People need to know there is an entire library of extensions, not just .security and .cars, etc, etc....

End users need to know they can develop on a NewG because the public is aware of them. Adoption begins with both public awareness and end user development. Adoption does not begin because .xyz went on a marketing spree. Adoption does not begin because .Global reports sales. Adoption does not begin because Donuts says .com's are obsolete as they call themselves "Non-.com."

Adoption can only begin when the NewG registries work together, work as one, work for all. NewG adoption is not about just one extension, it is about the public understanding that there are many extensions. Awareness does not begin with one extension, it only becomes viable when people understand that there are many extensions.

The only way for both public awareness and end user adoption is for those involved in the NewG industry to work together, not against each other.
I totally agree with you. There are several areas where improvement can be made - as you mentioned more awareness among end user (no doubt about that all!), and also, in parallel, better reporting to sources like namebio, as this is where domain investors will look most likely. So those efforts are basically complementary.
 
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That is never going to happen. There are too many different agendas, personalities, business models, etc.

In a large way it is a zero sum game as they are all fighting for a small piece of the small piece of total new gTLDs.

Brad
It is not small piece Brad. There are 23 mil of new gTLDs registered at the moment, as one can chect at namestat.org . And this is just beginning. This thread is about that general awareness is missing, reporting is missing, many things are missing.. but those things can and will be improved in time.

Imagine internet landscape in 10-20 years (this is my personal investment horizont, so to speak) -- chances are most people will use new gTLDs worldwide, together with ccTLDs in respective countries. .Com will remain very strong, particularly in US - but our planet is not only US :) Of course, this is just my personal view of things in future (and I might be wrong), but this a view which personally guides me when I purchase my investment names.
 
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There are 23 mil of new gTLDs registered at the moment, as one can chect at namestat.org . .

If only that reflected Business interest and not that of speculators - Difficult to see even a very small proportion of that 23 million going into any sort of build.

I have my personal opinion about the age of investors in the new-stuff. probably in the 18 to 25 range, just like those that went into .biz .info mobi and the like are now in their 30's . It's all about whats new as you enter a market. But seriously if one was to draw an analogy to the last launch of new tld's,(12 plus years ago) One would foresee a 100 fold of losses to those previous times just by the number of new extensions this time around

I wish I was wrong
 
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In my opinion each New gTLD by itself can't compete with the already established legacy extensions or some of the already popular country code extensions (ccTLDs), but if all New gTLD Registries combine their efforts to do some kind of global advertising to the general public then once people become aware of what new choices they have for their website they might be more willing to give New gTLDs a try specially if they can find some nice keyword / extension combinations that suit their needs better.

I still believe that one of the biggest impediments in the way of New gTLDs popularity is the high renewal charges that people see when they are presented with New gTLD choices at the Registrars, it might have been better to just charge a one time price and then given people the option of paying for their domain in installments instead of having never ending high renewals. The other obstacle that seems to be holding people back is that most business are unsure how New gTLDs are going to perform as far as SEO and rankings are concerned (like where their website is going to show in the search results) and so we need some New gTLD websites to rank high on the search engines so people can see for themselves that New gTLDs can work for them as well or even better than the old extensions in some cases. IMO
 
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There's a lot of nuances. I agree you can't blame the registries particularly when it comes to such niched extensions such as .mobi or .cricket, the target base is tiny, and the return vs production cost may not make sense. What about the extensions that have potential to cover a much larger user base, the clubs, ones, lifes etc these are not so niched.

But collaboration is the way to go for these smaller new extensions, and team effort for a large-scale marketing campaign where costs are shared. I really like that idea. But what can we do about that? We are just investors and at this point playing hot potato with the new G's.

I think the only way a TLD can take off is when it's got a clear identity, is backed by a community or has a clear market. But it's going to remain a niche market. Vast majority of released strings are not all-purpose extensions, so they can never be big and attain critical mass. They will forever remain in the shadows of bigger extensions.

What do you think happens when you released hundreds of TLDs and make them compete against one another for a share of a small pie ? Don't tell me you are surprised.
No, not surprised at all, and have never been one to kid myself or others. If it's small for registries, it will be even smaller for us. Limited servings with the best ingredients, else you're looking at a table full of left-overs.

Critical mass acceptance was never expected and shouldn't be, on an individual extension basis. But what we should be seeing, at some point, is the understanding that a tailored extension is an option, and this is what they have to work on, generating an awareness.

People need visual guidance before mass usage adoption can expected. On the backs of investors, this will never happen.
 
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