> Domains worth over $8 have already been namesquatted
> Making domain registration cheaper would only reduce the price of domain names for people who want to use them.
You don't see how those two statements contradict each other? Make registration $6, now domains that are worth between $6 and $8 will also be namesquatted. Reducing the price of something almost never results in less units sold, it's economics 101.
Have you ever bought a domain from a namesquatter? Did you pay $8 for it? No, you didn't, you paid whatever the seller thought that domain was worth to you, which is a lot more. Nobody namesquats to sell domains for $8 or $20. Yet if Verisign had that domain, you would only have paid $8 for it. That's the difference between squatting, and listing a public price that is the same for everyone and for every domain.
Verisign isn't squatting or ransoming anything no matter how much you may dislike them.
It costs Verisign <$1 to issue a domain and they’re charging $8. It costs a domain squatter $8 to buy a domain and they charge $9 or more. It’s the exact same grift.
If there’s a domain a squatter thought they could sell for $9 they’d buy it for $8 or $6, they’d make a profit either way. The only difference in name-squatting with lower prices is that one leech (Verisign) makes less money while another leech makes more.
You don't know what you're talking about. Squatters don't buy $8 domains to resell for $9, if they did, they would go out of business because the probability that their $8 domain will be purchased from them within a year (or ever) is far lower than 100%.
If a squatter manages to sell e.g. 10% of the domains they own in a given year, they'll break even – not even make a profit – if they sell those domains for $80 on average. In reality most squatted domains sell for more than that, easily hundreds or thousands of dollars. Such prices is why everyone hates squatters.
How much profit Verisign is making has zero relation to how much the domains should cost. ICANN could require Verisign to give most of their domain registration profit to some charity or even just require them to buy and shred currency if you don't trust charities. Either way that would remove excessive profit from Verisign without inviting even more squatters by reducing the price of domains.
> Making domain registration cheaper would only reduce the price of domain names for people who want to use them.
You don't see how those two statements contradict each other? Make registration $6, now domains that are worth between $6 and $8 will also be namesquatted. Reducing the price of something almost never results in less units sold, it's economics 101.
Have you ever bought a domain from a namesquatter? Did you pay $8 for it? No, you didn't, you paid whatever the seller thought that domain was worth to you, which is a lot more. Nobody namesquats to sell domains for $8 or $20. Yet if Verisign had that domain, you would only have paid $8 for it. That's the difference between squatting, and listing a public price that is the same for everyone and for every domain.
Verisign isn't squatting or ransoming anything no matter how much you may dislike them.
reply