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Hi. I work on Google Registry. forum.dev is and always has been a premium domain name (and you paid that same premium price at initial registration). We price
by CydeWeys 4y ago
Hi. I work on Google Registry. forum.dev is and always has been a premium domain name (and you paid that same premium price at initial registration). We price some domain names higher than others to help prevent cybersquatting, so that desirable domain names remain available for legitimate registrants rather than being sold for extravagant sums on the after-market. We have never increased the price of a single domain name after registration in our entire decade of existence.
For another example of a premium domain name that is still available for registration (in case people here want to verify the user experience), perform a domain name search for money.dev at your registrar of choice. It will be clearly marked with its yearly premium price. You would have seen this same information when you initially registered forum.dev.
- bdlowery 4y agoAaaaand the truth comes out.
- sieabahlpark 4y ago
- piscataway 4y agoThe story is actually more nuanced than your knee-jerk: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33928717 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33928717
- berkut 4y agoThe "more" is surely whether they're premium or not, which is what Op was responding to.
- CydeWeys 4y agoThat post links to a query for a non-premium domain name. Of course forum.dev is more valuable than asdfggg.dev. If you query a premium domain name that is available for registration (e.g. money.dev), you'll see that the listed price is higher than $12/yr.
- mayank 4y agoCan you comment on a reply below that claims there was promotional pricing in 2019 at launch? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33929132 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33929132
- CydeWeys 4y agoI think they're referring to the Early Access Program, which was a one-time pre-launch Dutch auction in advance of general availability. Note that that is orthogonal to a domain being premium or not. During the last day of EAP, you might have seen the price of a non-premium domain be something like $130+12/yr. Whereas for a ~$70/yr premium domain, it'd have been something like $130+70/yr. Regardless, forum.dev was registered in 2021 (you can confirm via WHOIS), which was long after the Early Access Program for .dev ended in 2019.
- daveevad 4y agoYou stated here that they paid $850 to initially register the domain name. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33929354 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33929354 Do you have proof of the initial price paid for registration or is this in some part speculation?
- oefrha 4y agoAccording to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33929472 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33929472 they checked in their system that the domain was billed as premium upon initial registration.
- optymizer 4y agoHi, offtopic question: I tried to register a .app domain on namecheap which suddenly became unavailable once I tried to add it to cart and is still unavailable. It was a strange coincidence that someone would buy that domain name at the exact same time as me, but Google Registry also says it's no longer unavailable, so I wanted to know who bought it. The weird thing is the Google Registry WHOIS page says "Domain not found" for the 3rd day in a row, which I find bizarre - the domain name is not available but also not registered. Any thoughts on what might be happening? (I am omitting the actual name because HN is a public forum)
- simfree 4y agoPre-reserving domains that have been searched is a common business practice. Some domain brokers implement this at scale IIRC. Unethical & Predatory? Sure, but it's not illegal.
- jeromegv 4y agoThey didn’t claim it was illegal? It makes it less economical for someone to hold a domain they aren’t planning to use for 20 years. The squatting just gets more expensive. Yes it’s a common business practice. Doesn’t mean google has to encourage that industry.
- simfree 4y agoI was highlighting that pre-reserving domains is predatory and unethical. IIRC the domains that are reserved by registrars are usually moved into a temporary hold status with the TLD, so the registrar isn't paying to register the domain, they are just getting the exclusive option to buy said domain for a number of weeks or months. Much cheaper way to squat on domains than actually buying them!
- jianglai 4y agoThis is not correct. Only registries can reserve domains. If a registrar "reserved" a domain, they'd have to have bought it from the registry.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- simfree 4y ago
- CydeWeys 4y agoI have been working for Google Registry for 8.5 years now, and am the TL/M of the team. But I was not relying on memory here (how would I remember the particulars of one single domain name out of millions, especially on the first occasion it is ever coming to my attention?). I simply don't understand the OP's claims given that I have confirmed in our system that the domain name 'forum.dev' is and always been premium and was billed as premium at the time of initial registration.
- simfree 4y ago8.5 years is not a decade. Precision matters, especially when talking about money and time. Did you verify the actual payment processed by the merchant processor, or just the category it fell in and the price of that category when the domain was actually registered? Bad code happens, the Google Cloud Print DDoS fiasco is but one example.
- berkut 4y agoWhat are you talking about? Why is a decade needed? The forum.dev domain name in question was registered a year ago on 2021-12-06...
- simfree 4y ago> We have never increased the price of a single domain name after registration in our entire decade of existence.
- oefrha 4y agoGoogle Registry/Domains only launched 8.5 years ago.
- 4y ago
- jonathankoren 4y agoI just love the concept of a “premium” database entry. Domain registries are such a goddamn rent seeking middleman scam.
- googlryas 4y agoIt's to stop squatters from buying 10000 common word domain names and trying to sell them for crazy amounts.
- indigodaddy 4y agoClearly it’s become much more than just that.
- jonathankoren 4y agoi HaVE nO cHoIcE bUt To ReNt SeEk MySeLf.
- googlryas 4y agoAn extremely low quality, low effort meme comment more appropriate for reddit, but I'll respond earnestly in any case. It's not rent seeking, which should be clear because the premium domains have a fixed price schedule that is far lower than what domain scalpers would charge, instead of a variable charge based on what they think they could get away with. Even at $850/yr, you can probably renew premium domains for multiple human lifespans before you end up paying as much as the scalpers might ask for certain domains. Instead of rent seeking, it is priced such that scalpers can't afford to squat on thousands of common word/phrase domains.
- jonathankoren 4y agoThe comment deserved half the effort I put into it, and this one deserves a quarter of the effort I’m putting into it. No one forces anyone to pay a domain squatter. This is literally a “problem” that only exists in people’s heads.
- saghm 4y ago> We price some domain names higher than others to help prevent cybersquatting, so that desirable domain names remain available for legitimate registrants rather than being sold for extravagant sums on the after-market. It's hard to take this seriously when $850/year is still way higher than other registrars charge for new domains. Are "legitimate registrants" supposed to be comforted that their extravagant sum is being paid on the primary market instead of the after market?
- CydeWeys 4y ago> It's hard to take this seriously when $850/year is still way higher than other registrars charge for new domains. That's actually a great price for a good domain name. If the name is already registered by a squatter looking to profit off it, you're looking at five figures minimum. I think the mistake you're making here is you're thinking it would be $12 vs $850, but it's not; it would be 'already registered by a squatter within milliseconds of TLD launch years ago and listed on a resale site for 5 figures' vs $850. And to be clear, premium prices are set at the registry (i.e. wholesale) level, not at the registrar (i.e. retail) level. That means that these names are premium at all registrars. Premium pricing is not unique to Google (either the registry or registrar); it's used by nearly all new gTLDs.
- behringer 4y agoOnly a sucker would pay 850 a year to a company that can invent any tld.
- PaulWaldman 4y agoHow is this any different than any other digital asset? They are all, in one way or another, "created out of thin air."
- thayne 4y agoWell it depends on how long you own the domain for. A one time 5 figure price, then $12 each year after that will be cheaper than $850/year if you keep the domain for decades.
- adastra22 4y agoThis is straight up rent seeking behavior, and despicable.
- warbler73 4y ago
- ericpauley 4y agoIf you read carefully, op never actually claimed they originally registered for $12, just that they didn't get the "normal" renewal price of $12. My guess is they expected it to be $850+$12/yr even though Google Domains is pretty clear about this in the UI.
- warbler73 4y ago
- dang 4y agoWe've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines. (Btw, I'm not talking about the GPT-3 reference; I'm talking about posting flamewar comments and attacking other users.) If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
- CydeWeys 4y agoThat is what I believe is happening as well.
- trvr 4y agoIf the idea is to prevent cybersquatting, why wouldn't one be able to renew a domain they already paid $850 at a price much closer to $12 than $850? $850/year is insane, full stop. You are comparing $850 to a 5-figure cybersquatter, but they only steal your money once. ;-)
- CydeWeys 4y agoIf it was an up-front price only, it would be a lot more than $850 at initial registration. But the relevant (and desired) incentive with an ongoing price is that if the registrant is no longer utilizing the domain name, they are much more incentivized to dispose of it in favor of someone who will use the domain name if the holding costs remain non-trivial.
- miiiiiike 4y agoI was bitten by this too. Why doesn't your team include the renewal price for domains in the 30-day autorenew notices? This whole class of problem would disappear if you did.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y agoThe renewal fee is on the domain management panel.
- CydeWeys 4y agoTo be clear, I work on Google Registry, not Google Domains. I don't particularly know anything about Google Domains other than basic generic information that applies to all domain name registrars. I can't even say that I know what most parts of the Google Domains UI even look like, let alone the 'why' behind them.
- sedatk 4y ago> and you paid that same premium price at initial registration He shared the invoice: https://twitter.com/emirkarsiyakali/status/1601436674856464384 https://twitter.com/emirkarsiyakali/status/16014366748564643... According to that, he paid 4360TRY last year ($300), and now asked to pay 13040TRY ($850). You can’t even make up the difference with the exchange rate changes.
- CydeWeys 4y agoThe Turkish lira is currently experiencing ~85% year-on-year inflation. Our domains' prices are denominated in US dollars, not Turkish lira. This problem looks to be caused by currency headwinds. At the time of initial registration, the amount of Turkish lira paid would have been worth a lot more than it is now. Also, 13040 TRY is worth US$700 at the current exchange rate, not US$850. That's actually a slight discount on the correct exchange rate, as another available domain name in the same pricing tier (e.g. 6b.dev) is showing as costing US$720/yr. So by paying in Turkish lira it looks like they're currently getting a discount of around US$20/yr, presumably because the prices displayed in Turkish are lagging the real exchange rate.
- sedatk 4y agoNo, the exchange rate on Dec 6, 2021 was 13.67. Not even close. EDIT: You edited your comment which made mine lose context. You had claimed something like “he had paid equivalent of $850 last year”. That’s provably not the case here. https://www.google.com/search?q=what%27s+usd+try+rate+in+dec+6%2C+2021 https://www.google.com/search?q=what%27s+usd+try+rate+in+dec...
- CydeWeys 4y agoI'll have to defer to the registrar team then, as we're getting outside the purview of anything having to do with the registry. I feel that the volatile exchange rate with high sustained inflation might have something to do with it though; maybe he got a too-good exchange rate at time of initial registration and now they're updating exchange rates more frequently? Not for me to know.
- emir 4y agoHello. I am happy that I caught the attention of someone from the Google team. Let's do it this way. I shared the invoice in the link. You are asking me to pay three times that amount today. Is this normal? To be honest, I am not familiar with the annual payment you mentioned. I expected to pay the price I paid the first year, and then continue with the normal -$12- renewal price. Is there a way to solve this confusion? Could you talk to the team on my behalf? This pricing is different from what I am used to with other tlds, but at least I am willing to pay the price I paid the first year. Last year's invoice and Google Domain dashboard screenshots: https://twitter.com/EmirKarsiyakali/status/1601436674856464384 https://twitter.com/EmirKarsiyakali/status/16014366748564643...
- mda 4y agoWhy do you claim that renewal price is $12? How did you come up with that number?
- ymolodtsov 4y agoRenewal prices are also much higher on premium domains. It's actually the contrary, they're often sold for cheaper through some discounts and the price for the second year is the actual price. I got a premium domain for $20 and paying $260 every year to renew it (but I knew it'd happen).
- emir 4y agoNo, I didn't have a discount. Google employee proved me right about that first-year fee. I paid the normal price for this domain. But, now, they want me to pay 2X for renewing.
- lazyeye 4y agoNo you price some domains higher because you can and you want to make more money.
- _cenw 4y agoThis is the same crap allocation policy you had during the presale. Money is maybe a sufficient discriminator, but it is not a good one. Money is very unequally distributed around the world and this basically presumes that the only legitimate use of such a domain could be in an enterprise in a first world country. Or someone rich enough to not be price sensitive at all. Fun fact, I reserved tty0.dev as a "vanity domain" during the presale, but someone decided to pay $300 more for the joke than me. And that domain still doesn't do anything "useful".
- Siira 4y agoAs a third world resident, I don’t see any solutions to this problem. You can’t give discounts, as that will enable arbitrage.
- CydeWeys 4y agoThere's no such concept of "reserving" domain names in a pre-sale. Either you own it, someone else owns it, or it doesn't yet exist and anyone could own it. I think you got confused by a registrar's "preorder" language, by that was never a guarantee; it was just their attempt to secure it for you when it became available. There was no guarantee.
- _cenw 4y agoI'm aware it's on a registrar level. I just thought that it was a misguided allocation policy. Someone ended up buying tty0.dev at the $300 price point and uses it for... a fake `ls` output. This registrant wasn't more or less legitimate than any other. They just had more disposable income to spend on vanity.
- thiht 4y agoWorked at a registrar before. This is the standard for how a lot of registries work. The only thing that doesn’t seem great is that in the invoice shared by OP, the domain isn’t designated clearly as a premium.
- Tao3300 4y agoAround here Premium usually means "cheaply brewed with adjunct grains." What's so premium about a domain? You're just pretending it has artificial scarcity and desirability. It's one step removed from NFTs in terms of fake value.
- toast0 4y agoThere's real scarcity. There are only so many five letter words with a strong relevance to the internet, and only so many tlds. Only one entity can control example.org at a time, so there you go. Would I pay for a premium domain name? Probably not. They might make sense for some uses though. I'd rather them be available at a public price than through someone who bought as many five letter words as they could and then sells them privately.