registries Uncertainty is a killer for domain sales

[equity78]

Unless you took the day off yesterday you are probably aware of the news out of Uniregistry. Domain Incite detailed comments from Frank Schilling on the upcoming price increases for several Uniregistry extensions. People as well as markets hate uncertainty, not knowing what your registrations are going to cost you year in and year out pretty much makes your portfolio unmanageable as a domain investor. … [Read more...]

 

[Name Trader]

My first thought when I read that notice is it might force some domain owners to drop some "premium" names which might give Frank first dibs at snapping them up. But I agree with his reasoning for the increase in prices. I suppose the price increases are not even across the board, because some tlds are probably losing more than others.

But essentially. What I am saying is that this is a repudiation of the validity of all the tld's which are suffering these increases. Somebody got their sums wrong. IMHO.

I agree that most serious hosts can afford the increase. But if I was one of them. I'd buy a .com for a one-time fee, rather than continual payments. (But maybe I'm not a serious enough host)

 

[Name Trader]

Most of these tld's are destined for the dustbin sometime later in their life. With .host maybe being the exception. I said maybe not definitely.

 

[MapleDots]

Most of these tld's are destined for the dustbin sometime later in their life.

Agreed, I think you are bang on

With .host maybe being the exception. I said maybe not definitely.

I disagree there, what business other than a hosting company would want that extension? With the new server farms soon everyone is going to be hosted by the top 3 anyways. I think the demographic is too small on the .host tld.

I will predict a fail for that one for sure, I will post back here with a friendly nudge when it happens.

 

[Kate]

Frankly I don't think that should be allowed, it's a wild wild West out here. IMO new extensions offered to the public should be regulated along .com lines. You can see clearly that self-regulation is not going to work here. Registrants are going to get screwed badly.
The DNS part of the Internet has effectively been privatized and hijacked by Icann who create artificial problems then come up with 'solutions' to justify their existence and lavish lifestyle. The DNS is a mess.

Of course the problem to begin with was releasing so many pointless strings so fast. Even registries are in a difficult position.

Instead, I have advocated a controlled release model that would work like this:

• Interested parties (registries, communities) suggest TLDs and take preorders from the public
  
• then we can assess if the TLD has sufficient demand and public backing, and is going to be economically viable, for example at least 20,000 orders for domains priced at $10/year
• TLDs that don't meet the threshold are abandoned and preorders are refunded
  
• we could even use a platform like Kickstarter for that

The idea is to test demand and viability before a TLD goes live. Doesn't it sound logical ?

The new TLD program is completely crazy, they have released hundreds of arbitrary strings without doing market research. Setting up a TLD is expensive, it's not something you do just to test waters. It's a recipe for disaster.

 

[BazooQa]

The more extensions are there, the more .com shines.
Sooner or later (rather sooner) all vehicles plate numbers in this city will be on different series.
And you will be the proud owner of a car with .COM.
I am not saying it is a chaotic non-controlled process, in fact If something happens - someone always benefits from it.
Whatever tempest in a teapot around new extensions they do, who cares? Serious business will be always around old respectful com, net and org.

 

[Domains - Wanted]

Most of these tld's are destined for the dustbin sometime later in their life. With .host maybe being the exception. I said maybe not definitely.

I disagree there, what business other than a hosting company would want that extension? With the new server farms soon everyone is going to be hosted by the top 3 anyways. I think the demographic is too small on the .host tld.
I will predict a fail for that one for sure, I will post back here with a friendly nudge when it happens.

Plus (or rather minus) this is what .NET is for. Many hosting services that can't have .COM, use .NET instead.

 

[Ategy]

Meh ... so many shades of grey to this development while everyone seems to see black or white.

Seriously .. the TLD's being priced up should have been priced higher to begin with. They either aren't generic enough or simply not good enough to generate the critical mass volume needed to maintain themselves. I only own one of them and that's simply because it's a non-premium of my home city (~ 3 million population). Unless you have ultra-amazing single keyword/keyterm domains, then these TLD's should not be touched by the majority of domainers simply because they are bad investments.

That being said .. Icann thought they were being clever with the 6 months rule and whatever other protections they had in mind .. but the truth is this entire thing was not realistically thought through and more protections for end users should have been put in place.

The new TLD's are not all bad .. .club is a good example of one of the very few doing things right. But if too many of these new TLD's fail then you have an overall global consumer confidence problem .. a huge one.

I'm not sure everyone will agree .. but the new TLD's have had their effect on softening .net .. which is to be expected as they are all quite simply "not-com". Argument could also be made that longer .com's also might be not as strong as they otherwise would have been.

In the end I'm not against higher prices .. but I'm against the process and how it's being done. It's a mess that should have been at least better prepared for.

Still .. all these domains combined equal only a fraction of the number of affected domains compared to the .xyz price increase coming for those who registed a trillion domains for $0.000001 and will soon need to renew at full retail .. lol .. I'm not looking forward to those drop lists ... lol .. but at least domainers went into that mess fully aware of the costs involved.

The 6 months notice should be extended to be longer than a year to be sure that come renewal time everyone gets properly notified and given the opportunity to pay multiple years upfront. there also should have been a % cap on the amount increased per year for existing domains (even upwards of 20%).

Also .. one part of the hundreds of millions of dollars Icann has pocketed from all this should be used to do some seriously needed marketing ... with another part being reserved to compensate domain owners on what will surely be the eventual sunsetting of many of these new TLDs.

Failure of a large number of new TLD's could actually be a really good thing ... as it might force Icann to regroup and rethink things ... seriously .. how the heck can they justify .car .cars .auto and .autos all existing as separate? While having all 4 could have been cool if they were packaged as one set of domains.

Unfortunately in the end I think most of the crappy new TLDs will be saved via mergers and consolidation.

The eventual release of .web (I'm not going to even mention how badly handled that mess was done) might also save the overall reputation of the new GTLDs .. but honestly .. I don't see .web as having as much potential as most people think.

At the end of the day everyone is simply debating over whether the glass is half empty or half full .. without paying too much attention to what is actually in the glass!

 

[Kate]

At the end of the day everyone is simply debating over whether the glass is half empty or half full .. without paying too much attention to what is actually in the glass!

Mud

 

[Satyajit Adhikary]

Soon extensions like .Adam .sarah .Shawn .john .Audrey would come out hoping that people with matching names would buy them someday.

 

[Jens P. Jensen]

My first thought when I read that notice is it might force some domain owners to drop some "premium" names which might give Frank first dibs at snapping them up. But I agree with his reasoning for the increase in prices. I suppose the price increases are not even across the board, because some tlds are probably losing more than others.

But essentially. What I am saying is that this is a repudiation of the validity of all the tld's which are suffering these increases. Somebody got their sums wrong. IMHO.

I agree that most serious hosts can afford the increase. But if I was one of them. I'd buy a .com for a one-time fee, rather than continual payments. (But maybe I'm not a serious enough host)

Soon extensions like .Adam .sarah .Shawn .john .Audrey would come out hoping that people with matching names would buy them someday.

Many did worn about how hundreds of nTLD's (as good as they might be) have only made the internet less attractive to the general users. Sorry to say but this might be happening.