With all the discussion about price increases at Uniregistry on certain new gtld strings, I reached out to a sponsor here at TheDomains, Radix. I wanted them to let our readers know what their plans were as far as potential price increases.
Sandeep Ramchandani, Vice President and Business Head at Radix had this to say:
At Radix, we had made a conscious decision to operate only broad-based extensions. TLDs which operate at higher volumes enjoy better scale and can operate at lower per unit costs. This formed the basis of our pricing decisions.
As a result, TLDs such as .host and .press, which are relatively narrower, have been priced much higher than those like .site and .online which really aren’t constrained by a glass ceiling of a limited market.
While we’re off to a strong start across all our extensions, we’ve barely scratched the surface of their overall global potential.
We have no immediate plans to increase our wholesale prices. In fact, we continue to actively run discounts and special offers for customers and domain investors.
“No immediate plans” translates into “It’s gonna happen sometime in the future.” 🙂
Agree, its a nice hint given. “no immediate plans” – .. it could be a day or a month or 3 months..? not years for sure 🙂 Price hike is a must to sustain, just IMO
‘No immediate plans’ we are going to shaft you at a later date.
DOMAINERS BEWARE…
Single weakest statement I have seen in a very long time.
First if all it is not an IMMEDIATE PLAN…..but it IS A PLAN!! DUH!
Single weakest statement in a long time came from your friend Frank Schilling.
I do notice rick has not hammered Schilling his buddy but taking swipes at companies that have not raised prices.
Rick has been shouting about the demise of ALL nGTLD’s from every rooftop before they were ever launched.
Go back and watch the debate between Schilling and Rick from ~2013.
All you had to do was listen and you could have avoided this disastrous roll-out of garbage extensions.
Why should I? I am not invested in them. Has no financial affect on me. It’s not personal for me. Maybe others. I have just had a long running friendly debate. Schwartz vs Schilling.
And he will remain my friend.
I did everything in my power to illustrate the pitfalls over the years. Domainers got faked out. Let the buyer beware. How many FOOLS are still registering gTLD’s as we speak?
Rick Schwartz says how it is ,
The King Of Deplorables has spoken.
thekingofdeplorables.com
Still laughing… http://domainnamewire.com/2017/03/09/uniregistry-new-tld-prices/#comment-2243726
If you are a developer ‘No immediate plans’ means we wait until you build a website, starting using emails etc. then we increase prices.
All these registries can say what they want , but if key people at the top of these companies changed their statements would not be valid any more.
Apart from them those companies can be sold, go bankrupt, or simply they will not keep their promises ( they did not sign any legal agreements regarding that).
Who in their right mind would use a gTLD domain for a business-related website at this point?
When a registry says something like that I’d say domainers are screwed long term.
The New gTLD initiative was instituted in part to provide choice. Domainers are responsible for the lions share of new gTLD string creations and domainers are again on the hook for 85% of the name registrations for all new gTLD strings.
The successful domainers that were first to the trough circa 1995-1999 who made millions are those that along with ICANN hatched the scheme to expand with the new gTLDs. Those that missed out on the .Com boom and those having lesser measures of success as domainers have footed the bill, by and large, so far in new gTLD doamin registrations, speculating.
Speculation got us here and speculation and greed motivated this new gTLD expansion, so if anyone is waiting for sympathy or a shoulder to cry on….. it ain’t coming.
This is the domain name business, plain and simple. No better or no worse than any other cutthroat ridden business.
Nothing new under the sun here. Pump and dump and screw your grandmother… What ?
New investors should know that investing in domains comes together with high risk of total failure (you can loose all your money. Maybe even money you don’t own). The term domain speculation didn’t fall from the sky – it is still speculation. Therefor if you don’t wage all the possible risks it is solely your fault and don’t blame others. An entrepreneur knows that doing business isn’t easy and comes with risk. Not everybody is born to be an entrepreneur and not all domainers are entrepreneurs.
Wish you all the best! 🙂
Radix: “no immediate plans”
.CLUB: “price protection…for the first 5 years ”
Donuts: “we have no plans to increase prices”
Donuts didn’t say, “we will not increase prices”, just that they haven’t formed a plan yet.
Time for people to turn off their auto-renewals – it’s easier than a credit card chargeback.
That about sums it up, only reasons Radix has no *immediate* plans is they are waiting to see the effect on Uniregistry’s revenue.
I’ll tell you what I think is remarkable, is how well Rick Schwartz has characterized the new gTLD program from start to date.
God knows I am resentful for not finding out about domain names until 2001, but this man, Rick Schwartz is much more than a King of Domain names.
He is much more than that. There ought to be a movie made about this man’s life and vision. There is a million dollar, hell a billion dollar idea.
Steve Jobs? Warren Buffet? Gates? Seriously, these are Schwartz’s peers.
Over
I’m a software engineer who also invests in: art, real estate, domains, and baseball cards (this started when I inherited a valuable collection from my grandfather, a former scout for the Boston Red Sox)
@rick schwartz— I thank you for your advice in the high risks of investing in the GTLDs. I may have registered 18, and still have maybe 10 (and all related to my business ventures), and I purchased none on the secondary markets.
Launching startups and high ROI instruments (like domains) always carry risks — but I work hard to mitigate those risks and bring the potential failure rate to below 40%. Elon Musk follows a similar formula. Richard Branson does bot — hence he has many failures, but some tremendous winners (his philosophy is hit a HR, or strike out and get back in the batter’s box for the next pitch)
Not sure how all this will play out with all the GTLDs? But it doesn’t look promising.
I try to follow the experts in domaining, as they know a whole lot more than I. So I listened to the Domain King and didn’t put many chips on the table for the GTLDs. Thanks, Rick!
De Niro to play the part of Schwartz .
Porno.Com $8,888,888 !
The Internet,s invention !
e-commerce
Big Business !
Seriously, I think we’re onto something here.
Hanks to play Neu!
Over
therecoveringdomainer.com
The habit.The disorder.The addiction.The disease.
So this is where things stand now:
• .Com is still king by a huge margin, no threat in sight. High pricing for new TLDs = small #’s = even less possibility of popularity and familiarity than previously touted and hoped.
• .Web if and when it appears will probably be able to only partially compete with .com for awareness and mindshare because people are familiar with the term. Similar to .net and .org. There may be an initial “honeymoon,” but seems unlikely to mount any type of huge challenge.
• The real sleeping giant in the US market is really .US. It can still be awoken to become a serious competitor to .com if the “PTB” are willing to do what is required to ignite that.
p.s. And if .Web goes the way of “high pricing” too, then .com laughs even louder and it becomes a virtually irrelevant TLD…
Radix “We have no immediate plans to increase our wholesale prices.”
Neville Chamberlain “Peace for our time.”
Their .store already has $4x.xx renewal. Also .tech renewal is $3x.xx.. Basically their names have already have high renewals
Just like .tv, .io and .ai. Cctld investors always have paid more in renewal fees.