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I like the gTLD opening up but the pricing bothers me for 2 reasons; It's closed off access for ordinary people and businesses at $180k+ setup pricing & $30k+

I like the gTLD opening up but the pricing bothers me for 2 reasons; It's closed off access for ordinary people and businesses at $180k+ setup pricing & $30k+ per year maintenance. Common access for anyone is a brilliant feature of the internet where anyone can hang out their shingle on equal terms. Making parts of domain ownership inaccessible goes against the spirit of the internet in my view. These prices seem to have no reflection to cost, so really are a money grab, and holding anyone with a brand to hostage. Companies will feel pressured to grab brand names while they see how their usage plays out over coming years. It feels a bit extortionate.

danudey 13y ago
Common people can't afford the required infrastructure to host a gTLD, getting requests from all over the world. Especially if it gets popular, it'll be pretty expensive to get into.
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  True, but that's a reason not to be so free with them in the first place. I see a lot of wannabe-monopolists in this list, eg getting a .actor domain is easily going to be a must-have for anyone who works in film/TV/theater so issuing a TLD for that is basically granting a license to tax that entire profession. I originally thought this was a good idea when I thought these new TLDs were going to be trickled out in an orderly fashion. As it is, it looks very much like a land grab that only rich participants can take part in. I predict the resulting balkanization of the namespace is going to lead to a collapse of the web within a decade, in the same way that Archie and Veronica eventually fell victim to their own complexity and were replaced by something more accessible.
  - icebraining 13y ago
    getting a .actor domain is easily going to be a must-have for anyone who works in film/TV/theater I'm sure the applicants think the same, but I'm completely unconvinced of that. People have trouble using .info and such already. My guess is that most such TLDs will be dead on arrival; most people don't even type domains nowadays, they search and use links. Having a good Facebook path is probably more important for most people than any domain will ever be.

danudey 13y ago

Common people can't afford the required infrastructure to host a gTLD, getting requests from all over the world. Especially if it gets popular, it'll be pretty expensive to get into.

anigbrowl 13y ago
True, but that's a reason not to be so free with them in the first place. I see a lot of wannabe-monopolists in this list, eg getting a .actor domain is easily going to be a must-have for anyone who works in film/TV/theater so issuing a TLD for that is basically granting a license to tax that entire profession. I originally thought this was a good idea when I thought these new TLDs were going to be trickled out in an orderly fashion. As it is, it looks very much like a land grab that only rich participants can take part in. I predict the resulting balkanization of the namespace is going to lead to a collapse of the web within a decade, in the same way that Archie and Veronica eventually fell victim to their own complexity and were replaced by something more accessible.
- icebraining 13y ago
  getting a .actor domain is easily going to be a must-have for anyone who works in film/TV/theater I'm sure the applicants think the same, but I'm completely unconvinced of that. People have trouble using .info and such already. My guess is that most such TLDs will be dead on arrival; most people don't even type domains nowadays, they search and use links. Having a good Facebook path is probably more important for most people than any domain will ever be.