7 ms·

While we have GoDaddy's attention

55 points by davewiner 15y ago

dlsspy 15y ago
...we've lost our focus on the real problem. This isn't internic. It's just a company in a commodity market whose service and policies people seem to dislike, but are about as far from a monopoly as you can get. They are relevant because we keep talking about them.
- guelo 15y ago
  GoDaddy, like a bunch of other giant non-monopoly companies such as banks, cable co's, phone companies, etc. steal from their customers with fraudulent nickle and dime charges. Happens all the time and it collectively costs consumers billions of dollars a year. I'm confused by what your objection is with a prominent blogger pointing this out. Should people just keep quiet and let other customers be defrauded?
  - rglullis 15y ago
    What the GP means is that the domain registrar business is what Scott Adams calls a "confusopoly". Just like banks and telco companies, registrars know that they can't compete on price alone, so instead they convolute their products and offerings as much as possible just to make it look as differentiation, but the main purpose is to make sure that the customer has no way to objectively compare two companies. As much as people are talking about GoDaddy and namecheap lately, no one managed to find a cheap registrar. Consumer opinion will always mention quality of support or the political stance of one company or another, but not one single soul managed to show me one registrar that has low prices for domain registration and renewal and SSL certificates. It's always one or the other.
    - eropple 15y ago
      Namecheap's $10 for a domain, $10 for a renewal, and has single-domain Comodo certs for $8.95 (wildcard certs for $89, which isn't the cheapest but is below average). I'm pretty sure that's a "cheap registrar".
      - rglullis 15y ago
        And yet, if you go to GoDaddy, you can find domain names for $1.99, and transfers for $7.99. With namecheap, they list as $10, but you can get the price even lower and use the code "SOPASucks"* * Conditions apply. Conditions also apply. All of these "conditions apply" kind of makes the point of my argument. For every $8.95 cert offer, there is another offer where you get a free cert by purchasing the domain name, or by transferring from some competitor, or by renewing some existing domain. It is a true confusopoly. These schemes to extract more money from consumers may be slightly more or less scammy, but ALL domain registrars engage in these practices. The sad part of it is that in the end, I don't know if I'd be better off being scammed into paying an extra $4/month for some service I'm not using, or being "socially conscious" and paying more to a company that does not pull these tricks, but that can only keep itself in business by charging higher prices.
        eropple 15y ago
        I don't think you're using "cheap registrar" in the same way as I would think most people would. $10 is cheap. It's a lunch. If you are hunting for "the best deal," it is virtually guaranteed that you're eventually going to get burned at some point or another. Find a registrar who's not breaking the bank and who doesn't act like a dick to you, and stick with 'em. Your confusion seems self-inflicted. (Namecheap actually does give you a free $8.95-level SSL cert with a domain registration.)
        rglullis 15y ago
        1) Go to namecheap home-page. 2) Try to find out how much it costs to *renew* a domain after the first year. 3) Realize that they are also not the masters of clarity and transparency. No domain registrar is willing to compete on price (or premium services) alone. Not one of them is willing to put a simple price table on their front-page, and stick to it. There is always some coupon or bundled offer (can I get a discount if I don't want a SSL cert?) or volume discount, or reduction on the new ".yagni" TLD... After all that, people just do what you say and "stick with someone who doesn't act like a dick to them". But that doesn't mean that the general confusion isn't there. Quite the contrary: it is working so well that you don't even notice it. What I want is a domain registrar version of http://prgmr.com/xen/ http://prgmr.com/xen/
    - freejack 15y ago
      I accept your point but reject the generalization. Not all registrars have embraced the prevailing approach you've identified - we've embraced exactly the opposite and work extremely hard to be as transparent and uncomplicated as possible. I don't have a source handy, but there was an article circulating a few years ago describing the "evilness" of complication. The contention was that businesses that work hard to complicate situations for consumers are fundamentally "bad" and that the long-term win lies with simplifying complexity (the author made a distinction between complexity and complication - i.e. math is complex and best expressed in the least complicated manner.) Anyways, I just wanted to point out that not everyone is working a variation of "the bait and switch" :) /r
  - drivebyacct2 15y ago
    > steal from their customers with fraudulent nickle and dime charges whoa now, that's quite the claim. I'm no GoDaddy fan, but come on.
    - guelo 15y ago
      This claim was made in the article, in case you didn't read it.
    - wpietri 15y ago
      If anything, that's generous. People have already talked about the confusion the generate with pricing, upselling, and renewing. But the other day I got an email that said: "You are the administrator on record for the following domains listed for sale at Go Daddy Auctions:" And it listed a domain I've had for 15 years, one that isn't even listed with GoDaddy. I thought somebody had hijacked my domain. Turns out it was all a scam. They were just trying to get me to use their assorted services. They said that "someone" had listed my domain there, but couldn't say who or when. When I asked to be taken off their mailing lists, they told me there was no list to be taken off of, but that yes, they might send me more bogus notices at any time. When I asked to speak to a supervisor, the guy flat-out refused. Eventually he called me names and hung up on me. As far as I'm concerned, they're assholes and scammers. They compete on marketing and the ability to confuse the rubes. I can only hope that Jon Postel's vengeful spirit haunts them unto suicide.
  - dlsspy 15y ago
    > Should people just keep quiet and let other customers be defrauded? No, they should talk the damage SOPA will do and companies that consumers should work with that currently provide positive experience. Godaddy has had tremendous press over the last few days. All most people know about them now is that they sell domains. Can I buy domains somewhere else? Is there a company better than godaddy? Why is everyone talking about godaddy instead of this other company?
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
georgieporgie 15y ago
Assuming the author submitted this, the sentence starting with "On what planet is a customer" appears to be a fragment.
- davewiner 15y ago
  Might not be the best contructed sentence, but it's a complete one. "On what planet is a customer, expressing a very clear wish, asking you to do something for them."
  - georgieporgie 15y ago
    But it doesn't make any sense. It's like a final clause was left off.
    - davewiner 15y ago
      As with most other things, it probably makes a bit more sense if you read the other sentences around it. In any case my apologies for writing awkward (and to some confusing) prose.
      - georgieporgie 15y ago
        "On what planet is a customer, expressing a very clear wish, asking you to do something for them." That doesn't make any sense on its own. Expressing a clear wish for customer service to do something is asking them to do something for you. The preceding two sentences appear to establish that you did ask them to remove it for you: It wasn't so much that I had the charge, but that it was almost impossible to get them to remove it. I got in contact with their support people and they said I had to do it myself, they couldn't do it "for" me. The following four sentences further establish that you were asking them to do something for you: That's what you get paid for. To do things on my behalf. Hopefully you make enough money. If not, you should just charge more, not do these horrible ripoffs. So, the sentence in question makes no sense.
        15y ago
thaumaturgy 15y ago
(Sorry -- a little bit of crankiness ahead. I'll try to moderate my tone accordingly.) OK, I've flagged this. Not only are the GoDaddy articles on the front page here getting out of hand, but this article adds literally nothing to any discussion anywhere. I'm sure the author is a wonderful and intelligent person, but this particular article is completely useless. In particular, I am completely underwhelmed by anybody that says they're writing a blog post about a company "as a warning to others", or that "there ought to be a consumer reports for ______". Here's the thing: there are already a bajillion boo-hoo stories out there about GoDaddy. They have a terrible track record. (If someone is actively doing any business at all with GoDaddy, I immediately have a clue about how long they've been in the industry, and how deeply, and their level of expertise.) But nobody bothers to do background research on companies like this! When this guy went and decided to do business with GoDaddy, he obviously didn't bother to read any of the other stuff online about them first. What good would a Consumer Reports have done him? He'd've ignored it too! The people registering 35,000 domains on GoDaddy tomorrow also won't read his post, nor will they likely read any of the other stuff out there about GoDaddy. Instead, they'll think they've got an idea for something, say to themselves, "I need to register a domain!", wonder how to go about that, Google it, and -- "Oh yeah, GoDaddy! They say they have great support! They say they're cheap! And oh look, boobs! I've heard of them..." I'm sorry you got ripped off by a company that ripped off thousands of other people before you. Let this be a $5 lesson to do your homework next time. :-)
- guelo 15y ago
  I don't understand this defeatist attitude, just because other people have complained and nothing has changed doesn't mean that people shouldn't continue complaining, especially a prominent blogger like Dave Wiener. If people keep shouting into the interwebs maybe something will happen, maybe the next registrar searcher will find this article in google or maybe enough people pull out the pitchforks that it forces GoDaddy to at least pretends it's changing. We don't have to live in the crappy world that we do, we can change it.
- pbreit 15y ago
  This is almost as much an indictment on the competition as it is GoDaddy. The fact is, marketing and branding can still sell a lot of product (even if the marketing is goofy and the product is sub-par). It's still not even clear to me which other vendors we should be considering. Namecheap, I guess.
larrys 15y ago
As a competitor of godaddy's that charges what some, no actually most, believe is an exorbitant rate for domains (compared to godaddy) we hear every day from people who want to know why we charge what we do. Why? Because we don't sell you things you don't need and lure you in with low pricing, loss leaders or bait and switch. Here's some background. Each and every registrar, whether they are selling 1000 domains a year or a million pays exactly the same for .com/net/ domains. The variable cost is identical and essentially set by Verisign/PIR/Afilias and ICANN. As much as large registrars want you to believe they make it up on volume that isn't what's going on. They are selling you extra services and things that you don't need. There is simply no way to make money in domains at the prices out there unless you do that. It's that simple. Now I'm not even talking about the pre checked boxes that Dave is referring to. I'm just talking about taking advantage of people who don't understand what they need and what they should buy. (Like getting privacy protection on a domain used in a business as only one example under the guise of protecting you against spam and protecting privacy!). Or worthless cctld's Now of course there is nothing new about this. It's similar to many things in technology. Such as selling a computer and making people think they need a large fast processor even if the are only surfing the web or using the computer for email (as only one example). (Note: On .org and .info PIR/Afilias sometimes run rebates if a registrar exceeds a certain level of domains from the previous year or time period. But as everyone knows the bulk of domains are .com)
- pbreit 15y ago
  So what is that variable cost?
  - larrys 15y ago
    Domain ICANN registrar cost, variable .com - $7.34 + .18 icann = $7.52 .net - $4.65 + .18 icann = $4.83 .org - $7.21 + .18 icann = $7.39 .info - $5.75 new + .18 icann = $5.93 .info - $6.75 renewal + .18 icann = $6.93 1/15/2012 Price change .com - $7.85 + .18 icann = $8.03 .net - $5.11 + .18 icann = $5.29 .org (sorry don't have this right at hand as I am traveling) .info (sorry don't have this right at hand as I am traveling) ----FIXED BELOW--- Ongoing fixed costs, in addition to other obvious fixed costs (hosting, customer service etc.) and not including startup ICANN fees (as an aside the startup fees are pretty low now. Back when we started we had to post a $100,000 bond which essentially meant putting $100k in a bank which we couldn't touch). Icann Quarterly Fee, with drop pool: 1114.254 = $4457.00/year Icann Quarterly Fee, w/o drop pool: 371.414 = $1485.64/yr (If you are grabbing names in the batch pool or essentially attempting multiple name registrations but with only a small percentage of resulting registrations relative to the overall registration rate.) Annual Registrar Acc Fee: $4000.00 ($1000*4) ---Additional Variable Costs--- Additionally, keep in mind that domain orders are typically paid for by credit card. So in addition to the above the registrar is paying a few % points on their cost of the domain. So for example if the base cost of a .com is (on 1/15/12) $8.03 with a 2.5% cc fee we are talking about another .20 or a total of 8.23 in cost. Lastly, registrars have to keep money on deposit with the various registries to equal the amount of registrations that they will do in a month. So if they are doing $10,000 of domain registrations in a month they would have to keep maybe an amount on deposit with (for just .com .net) Verisign of, say, $6000 to $15000 depending on the time of the month. So there is the opportunity cost of that money. That money that is tied up that you can't do anything with and that you are either forgoing opportunity cost of borrowing. If borrowing (assuming you can) I guess you could assign a cost of 3.5% to 5% for this on top of the domain cost as an additional variable cost. That's off the top. I'm probably missing a thing or two and will update the above.
pbreit 15y ago
Would it kill Dave to tell us the name of the add-on service in question?
- davewiner 15y ago
  I linked to it from that piece. Here it is again, to save you the trouble of going back to the post. http://scripting.com/images/2011/10/26/goDaddyConfirmation.gif http://scripting.com/images/2011/10/26/goDaddyConfirmation.g...
  - pbreit 15y ago
    My bad.

55 points by davewiner 15y ago

...we've lost our focus on the real problem. This isn't internic. It's just a company in a commodity market whose service and policies people seem to dislike, but are about as far from a monopoly as you can get. They are relevant because we keep talking about them.

guelo 15y ago
GoDaddy, like a bunch of other giant non-monopoly companies such as banks, cable co's, phone companies, etc. steal from their customers with fraudulent nickle and dime charges. Happens all the time and it collectively costs consumers billions of dollars a year. I'm confused by what your objection is with a prominent blogger pointing this out. Should people just keep quiet and let other customers be defrauded?
- rglullis 15y ago
  What the GP means is that the domain registrar business is what Scott Adams calls a "confusopoly". Just like banks and telco companies, registrars know that they can't compete on price alone, so instead they convolute their products and offerings as much as possible just to make it look as differentiation, but the main purpose is to make sure that the customer has no way to objectively compare two companies. As much as people are talking about GoDaddy and namecheap lately, no one managed to find a cheap registrar. Consumer opinion will always mention quality of support or the political stance of one company or another, but not one single soul managed to show me one registrar that has low prices for domain registration and renewal and SSL certificates. It's always one or the other.
  - eropple 15y ago
    Namecheap's $10 for a domain, $10 for a renewal, and has single-domain Comodo certs for $8.95 (wildcard certs for $89, which isn't the cheapest but is below average). I'm pretty sure that's a "cheap registrar".
    - rglullis 15y ago
      And yet, if you go to GoDaddy, you can find domain names for $1.99, and transfers for $7.99. With namecheap, they list as $10, but you can get the price even lower and use the code "SOPASucks"* * Conditions apply. Conditions also apply. All of these "conditions apply" kind of makes the point of my argument. For every $8.95 cert offer, there is another offer where you get a free cert by purchasing the domain name, or by transferring from some competitor, or by renewing some existing domain. It is a true confusopoly. These schemes to extract more money from consumers may be slightly more or less scammy, but ALL domain registrars engage in these practices. The sad part of it is that in the end, I don't know if I'd be better off being scammed into paying an extra $4/month for some service I'm not using, or being "socially conscious" and paying more to a company that does not pull these tricks, but that can only keep itself in business by charging higher prices.
      - eropple 15y ago
        I don't think you're using "cheap registrar" in the same way as I would think most people would. $10 is cheap. It's a lunch. If you are hunting for "the best deal," it is virtually guaranteed that you're eventually going to get burned at some point or another. Find a registrar who's not breaking the bank and who doesn't act like a dick to you, and stick with 'em. Your confusion seems self-inflicted. (Namecheap actually does give you a free $8.95-level SSL cert with a domain registration.)
        rglullis 15y ago
        1) Go to namecheap home-page. 2) Try to find out how much it costs to *renew* a domain after the first year. 3) Realize that they are also not the masters of clarity and transparency. No domain registrar is willing to compete on price (or premium services) alone. Not one of them is willing to put a simple price table on their front-page, and stick to it. There is always some coupon or bundled offer (can I get a discount if I don't want a SSL cert?) or volume discount, or reduction on the new ".yagni" TLD... After all that, people just do what you say and "stick with someone who doesn't act like a dick to them". But that doesn't mean that the general confusion isn't there. Quite the contrary: it is working so well that you don't even notice it. What I want is a domain registrar version of http://prgmr.com/xen/ http://prgmr.com/xen/
  - freejack 15y ago
    I accept your point but reject the generalization. Not all registrars have embraced the prevailing approach you've identified - we've embraced exactly the opposite and work extremely hard to be as transparent and uncomplicated as possible. I don't have a source handy, but there was an article circulating a few years ago describing the "evilness" of complication. The contention was that businesses that work hard to complicate situations for consumers are fundamentally "bad" and that the long-term win lies with simplifying complexity (the author made a distinction between complexity and complication - i.e. math is complex and best expressed in the least complicated manner.) Anyways, I just wanted to point out that not everyone is working a variation of "the bait and switch" :) /r
- drivebyacct2 15y ago
  > steal from their customers with fraudulent nickle and dime charges whoa now, that's quite the claim. I'm no GoDaddy fan, but come on.
  - guelo 15y ago
    This claim was made in the article, in case you didn't read it.
  - wpietri 15y ago
    If anything, that's generous. People have already talked about the confusion the generate with pricing, upselling, and renewing. But the other day I got an email that said: "You are the administrator on record for the following domains listed for sale at Go Daddy Auctions:" And it listed a domain I've had for 15 years, one that isn't even listed with GoDaddy. I thought somebody had hijacked my domain. Turns out it was all a scam. They were just trying to get me to use their assorted services. They said that "someone" had listed my domain there, but couldn't say who or when. When I asked to be taken off their mailing lists, they told me there was no list to be taken off of, but that yes, they might send me more bogus notices at any time. When I asked to speak to a supervisor, the guy flat-out refused. Eventually he called me names and hung up on me. As far as I'm concerned, they're assholes and scammers. They compete on marketing and the ability to confuse the rubes. I can only hope that Jon Postel's vengeful spirit haunts them unto suicide.
- dlsspy 15y ago
  > Should people just keep quiet and let other customers be defrauded? No, they should talk the damage SOPA will do and companies that consumers should work with that currently provide positive experience. Godaddy has had tremendous press over the last few days. All most people know about them now is that they sell domains. Can I buy domains somewhere else? Is there a company better than godaddy? Why is everyone talking about godaddy instead of this other company?

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

georgieporgie 15y ago

Assuming the author submitted this, the sentence starting with "On what planet is a customer" appears to be a fragment.

davewiner 15y ago
Might not be the best contructed sentence, but it's a complete one. "On what planet is a customer, expressing a very clear wish, asking you to do something for them."
- georgieporgie 15y ago
  But it doesn't make any sense. It's like a final clause was left off.
  - davewiner 15y ago
    As with most other things, it probably makes a bit more sense if you read the other sentences around it. In any case my apologies for writing awkward (and to some confusing) prose.
    - georgieporgie 15y ago
      "On what planet is a customer, expressing a very clear wish, asking you to do something for them." That doesn't make any sense on its own. Expressing a clear wish for customer service to do something is asking them to do something for you. The preceding two sentences appear to establish that you did ask them to remove it for you: It wasn't so much that I had the charge, but that it was almost impossible to get them to remove it. I got in contact with their support people and they said I had to do it myself, they couldn't do it "for" me. The following four sentences further establish that you were asking them to do something for you: That's what you get paid for. To do things on my behalf. Hopefully you make enough money. If not, you should just charge more, not do these horrible ripoffs. So, the sentence in question makes no sense.
      - 15y ago

thaumaturgy 15y ago

(Sorry -- a little bit of crankiness ahead. I'll try to moderate my tone accordingly.) OK, I've flagged this. Not only are the GoDaddy articles on the front page here getting out of hand, but this article adds literally nothing to any discussion anywhere. I'm sure the author is a wonderful and intelligent person, but this particular article is completely useless. In particular, I am completely underwhelmed by anybody that says they're writing a blog post about a company "as a warning to others", or that "there ought to be a consumer reports for ______". Here's the thing: there are already a bajillion boo-hoo stories out there about GoDaddy. They have a terrible track record. (If someone is actively doing any business at all with GoDaddy, I immediately have a clue about how long they've been in the industry, and how deeply, and their level of expertise.) But nobody bothers to do background research on companies like this! When this guy went and decided to do business with GoDaddy, he obviously didn't bother to read any of the other stuff online about them first. What good would a Consumer Reports have done him? He'd've ignored it too! The people registering 35,000 domains on GoDaddy tomorrow also won't read his post, nor will they likely read any of the other stuff out there about GoDaddy. Instead, they'll think they've got an idea for something, say to themselves, "I need to register a domain!", wonder how to go about that, Google it, and -- "Oh yeah, GoDaddy! They say they have great support! They say they're cheap! And oh look, boobs! I've heard of them..." I'm sorry you got ripped off by a company that ripped off thousands of other people before you. Let this be a $5 lesson to do your homework next time. :-)

guelo 15y ago
I don't understand this defeatist attitude, just because other people have complained and nothing has changed doesn't mean that people shouldn't continue complaining, especially a prominent blogger like Dave Wiener. If people keep shouting into the interwebs maybe something will happen, maybe the next registrar searcher will find this article in google or maybe enough people pull out the pitchforks that it forces GoDaddy to at least pretends it's changing. We don't have to live in the crappy world that we do, we can change it.
pbreit 15y ago
This is almost as much an indictment on the competition as it is GoDaddy. The fact is, marketing and branding can still sell a lot of product (even if the marketing is goofy and the product is sub-par). It's still not even clear to me which other vendors we should be considering. Namecheap, I guess.

larrys 15y ago

As a competitor of godaddy's that charges what some, no actually most, believe is an exorbitant rate for domains (compared to godaddy) we hear every day from people who want to know why we charge what we do. Why? Because we don't sell you things you don't need and lure you in with low pricing, loss leaders or bait and switch. Here's some background. Each and every registrar, whether they are selling 1000 domains a year or a million pays exactly the same for .com/net/ domains. The variable cost is identical and essentially set by Verisign/PIR/Afilias and ICANN. As much as large registrars want you to believe they make it up on volume that isn't what's going on. They are selling you extra services and things that you don't need. There is simply no way to make money in domains at the prices out there unless you do that. It's that simple. Now I'm not even talking about the pre checked boxes that Dave is referring to. I'm just talking about taking advantage of people who don't understand what they need and what they should buy. (Like getting privacy protection on a domain used in a business as only one example under the guise of protecting you against spam and protecting privacy!). Or worthless cctld's Now of course there is nothing new about this. It's similar to many things in technology. Such as selling a computer and making people think they need a large fast processor even if the are only surfing the web or using the computer for email (as only one example). (Note: On .org and .info PIR/Afilias sometimes run rebates if a registrar exceeds a certain level of domains from the previous year or time period. But as everyone knows the bulk of domains are .com)

pbreit 15y ago
So what is that variable cost?
- larrys 15y ago
  Domain ICANN registrar cost, variable .com - $7.34 + .18 icann = $7.52 .net - $4.65 + .18 icann = $4.83 .org - $7.21 + .18 icann = $7.39 .info - $5.75 new + .18 icann = $5.93 .info - $6.75 renewal + .18 icann = $6.93 1/15/2012 Price change .com - $7.85 + .18 icann = $8.03 .net - $5.11 + .18 icann = $5.29 .org (sorry don't have this right at hand as I am traveling) .info (sorry don't have this right at hand as I am traveling) ----FIXED BELOW--- Ongoing fixed costs, in addition to other obvious fixed costs (hosting, customer service etc.) and not including startup ICANN fees (as an aside the startup fees are pretty low now. Back when we started we had to post a $100,000 bond which essentially meant putting $100k in a bank which we couldn't touch). Icann Quarterly Fee, with drop pool: 1114.254 = $4457.00/year Icann Quarterly Fee, w/o drop pool: 371.414 = $1485.64/yr (If you are grabbing names in the batch pool or essentially attempting multiple name registrations but with only a small percentage of resulting registrations relative to the overall registration rate.) Annual Registrar Acc Fee: $4000.00 ($1000*4) ---Additional Variable Costs--- Additionally, keep in mind that domain orders are typically paid for by credit card. So in addition to the above the registrar is paying a few % points on their cost of the domain. So for example if the base cost of a .com is (on 1/15/12) $8.03 with a 2.5% cc fee we are talking about another .20 or a total of 8.23 in cost. Lastly, registrars have to keep money on deposit with the various registries to equal the amount of registrations that they will do in a month. So if they are doing $10,000 of domain registrations in a month they would have to keep maybe an amount on deposit with (for just .com .net) Verisign of, say, $6000 to $15000 depending on the time of the month. So there is the opportunity cost of that money. That money that is tied up that you can't do anything with and that you are either forgoing opportunity cost of borrowing. If borrowing (assuming you can) I guess you could assign a cost of 3.5% to 5% for this on top of the domain cost as an additional variable cost. That's off the top. I'm probably missing a thing or two and will update the above.

pbreit 15y ago

Would it kill Dave to tell us the name of the add-on service in question?

davewiner 15y ago
I linked to it from that piece. Here it is again, to save you the trouble of going back to the post. http://scripting.com/images/2011/10/26/goDaddyConfirmation.gif http://scripting.com/images/2011/10/26/goDaddyConfirmation.g...
- pbreit 15y ago
  My bad.