Frank Schilling Increasing New gTLD Prices 3,000%

[dog]

Sixteen TLDs from the company’s portfolio of 27 will see price increases of up to 3,000% starting September 8, CEO Frank Schilling confirmed to DI today.

While domainers have taken to new gTLDs in greater numbers than Schilling anticipated, demand among worldwide consumers has been slower than expected, Schilling said.

http://domainincite.com/21603-schilling-big-price-increases-needed-to-keep-new-gtlds-alive

 

[philiporchard]

Ouch... not for the faint hearted!

 

[Edwin]

That's the end of the new GTLD right there, because their ICANN agreement (different from .com) allows any registry operator to do the same.

You'd have to be bonkers to renew for a decade to beat the price rise, since there's nothing to stop the prices going up again and again - who would dare buy them on the aftermarket under those conditions?

 

[dog]

A registrant could renew for all those years, then the registry could decide to steal the domain from you.

 

[Edwin]

Exactly. The new GTLD are like a frontier town in the Wild West: the rule of law is weak, and malleable.

This was a known problem, by the way - it's just that none of the registries exploited it until now...

 

[RobM]

Lol only in the domain industry do you raise prices due to a lack of demand. How to make worthless extensions that nobody wants even more worthless.

 

[Edwin]

Lol only in the domain industry do you raise prices due to a lack of demand. How to make worthless extensions that nobody wants even more worthless.

It's a case of "take the money, and run run run..."

If 10% of their customer base renews for 10 years, that's a gush of cash equal to the current annual rev rate. And that looks good if they then want to turn around and try and sell the right to the extension to a different new GTLD player.

 

[dog]

Good analogy.

Actually Donuts raised prices and several others marked domains as premiums after the fact.

Exactly. The new GTLD are like a frontier town in the Wild West: the rule of law is weak, and malleable.

This was a known problem, by the way - it's just that none of the registries exploited it until now...

Totally wrong move by Frank. He's creating chaos and instability, this will be a domino effect.

New gtld registrations are going to get massacred this year.

Lol only in the domain industry do you raise prices due to a lack of demand. How to make worthless extensions that nobody wants even more worthless.

It's a scare tactic to renew out.

How can you sell these when investors and end users don't want them?

It's a case of "take the money, and run run run..."

If 10% of their customer base renews for 10 years, that's a gush of cash equal to the current annual rev rate. And that looks good if they then want to turn around and try and sell the right to the extension to a different new GTLD player.

 

[martin-s]

All good news for reinforcing that .com and the other established extensions are the best homes for your website.

I almost added .co.uk, but who trusts Nominet not to continue to screw that up?

 

[dog]

Yup! Why would you use anything else?

All good news for reinforcing that .com and the other established extensions are the best homes for your website.

.UK seems minor issue.

Real question for Nominet... Is running backend for MMX and Automattic making them lose money?

I almost added .co.uk, but who trusts Nominet not to continue to screw that up?

 

[dog]

Godaddy has dropped support for Uniregistry Domains.

We have stopped registering or transferring Uniregistry domain names into our system. The dramatic price hike Uniregistry announced left us no choice. Until we can assess the impact on our current and potential customers, we have stopped new registrations.

GoDaddy works to deliver a great customer experience. We now have customers who will be paying up to 3,000 percent more for their renewal. That’s an extremely poor customer experience and does not reflect well on the domain name industry in general.

-Mike McLaughlin, Godaddy GM of Domains.

https://www.acorndomains.co.uk/threads/godaddy-drops-uniregistry-domains.146176/

What registrars are next?

 

[getmein]

It makes Nominet look like a benign dictator.

I do wonder if FS will decide to backtrack, it's a big deal to lose such a big distribution partner.
The decision not to grandfather existing registrants is an error because it creates an uncertainty of pricing across the whole programme. If the current rate of new registrations is so low that they've discounted grandfathering as being too costly, then it suggests some of these namespaces are already on life support.

I understand the rationale to increase the prices to try and make the numbers work but the problem with some of the G's continues to be a fundamental one, a lot of these strings can never generate the demand to either become well known in their own right or to sustain themselves as a standalone entity. The appeal of .blackfriday is so limited both in terms of people who might be interested (brand.blackfriday) and words that actually work with the extension, that it's clear some of these extensions are doomed. One thing to have prices rise 3000% another to just have the namespace disappear because no one else wants to rescue it.

The pricing pivot, suggests that they were overly optimistic about registrations. But when the registries have tried to capture value from registrations, premium registrations and their own name hoarding - they've probably been a little too greedy. I suspect this is the beginning of many pivots to try and make these operations successful.

 

[dog]

Schilling stated GD will come back but I'm doubtful. It should be noted they blocked all his extensions, not just ones with price increases.

NameCheap did a similar move with .XYZ domains.

http://adamyamada.com/namecheap-drops-support-xyz-registrations-transfers/

When registrars drop entire extensions, what hope is there?

 

[RobM]

A good example of greedy registries being screwed by their greedy provider. It was obvious that *most* new gtlds would fail - less would fail if it hadn't cost so much in the first place and ongoing to maintain them but their paymasters don't care and want to take as much money off these sucke...erm..business men. End result - icann loadsamoney... registrars 2 years and bankruptcy... consumer nil.

 

[dog]

Agree, but I'm sure a lot of people will.

You'd have to be bonkers to renew for a decade to beat the price rise, since there's nothing to stop the prices going up again and again - who would dare buy them on the aftermarket under those conditions?

Thought about this.... yeah I think Frank Schilling's plan was to scarce investors into renewing out @Edwin. Then sell the extension, because he knows these aren't worth it.

All new G registries will have cashflow problems this year. So who will buy?

Do people realize Schilling spends millions buying .COM still?

It's a case of "take the money, and run run run..."

If 10% of their customer base renews for 10 years, that's a gush of cash equal to the current annual rev rate. And that looks good if they then want to turn around and try and sell the right to the extension to a different new GTLD player.

 

[dog]

With the introduction of so many new domain extensions in recent years, businesses and orgs, as well as marketing teams, IP managers and technical administrators of domain portfolios are becoming immune to the messages new gTLDs are putting forth.

Yup!

WebNames.ca

 

[woopwoop]

Rules and assurances will come into effect because of this but some registries also dropped their prices massively (Boston Ivy). I think even a slash in prices doesn't help maintain customer confidence either.

At the end of the day, the registries who provide the guarantees and stable and reasonable pricing are the ones that will stick around and grow and possibly thrive.

I used to have lots of .co.uk's and the introduction of .uk really kicked the aftermarket. I'm down to 30 .co.uk's (and some .uk's) I think. I've been out of the UK market for a while and so am not sure about domainer and end user sentiment.

In terms of gTLDs, I'm invested in .NYC where I live/work now, and it feels solid. No swings in the pricing and it's supported by the city government. This NYC website directory shows the cross section using .NYC. I think you have to take each gTLD on it's own merit and risks.

If I was in the UK opening a bike shop, I might go for a company.bikes gTLD. Why not? SEO? Maybe, but there would still be work to do on a somename.com website to get it to rank well... plus how many bikes am I selling online? Probably none. So if I wanted a memorable website, I could be proud of handing over my company.bikes name on a business card to my potential customers - it might give me an edge in them remembering my business.

I believe that although some gTLDs will die, the mass release of them and registrations over time have slowly been chipping away at .com and customers have options that provide meaning, brand extension and the opportunity to get the keyword/name that they want on the left of the dot, that is out of reach with a .com.

 

[dog]

.bikes is not an extension. You've just shown the problem with new gTLDs.

Even people on domain forums can't remember .whatever correctly.

Apply for .bikes in the next round?

If I was in the UK opening a bike shop, I might go for a company.bikes gTLD.

 

[woopwoop]

Nope you misunderstand. I'm glad it wasn't an extension for the purpose of making my point about the possibility of .anything and how if it is relevant to the business then it has value in branding and in forming a memorable domain.

@dog, I don't even have a bike shop or any plan to open one... did I forget that too!

 

[dog]

So you believe using fake extensions to prove points helps the new gTLD argument?