Do you have back-up domains?
Something on my mind recently with the .org sale fiasco (https://savedotorg.org/) is how the new gTLD domains (eg. .dev, .codes, .ninja, .xyz, etc.) do not have price caps either. The price could skyrocket at any time. There's also a question mark for me over what would happen if one of the operators of the gTLD close down. There is funds deposited by the owners to cover the operation if one does go bust but as far as I can tell there's not much precedent for how it would really go down.
With this in mind, does anyone worry about building a brand on these relatively new domain names? Losing or not being able to afford a domain could be an enormous issue.
For my important projects where I have a preferred new gTLD I have also been buying a matching .com/.net/ccTLD just in case.
Google run .dev and .app, just check out their track record! https://killedbygoogle.com/
Yes! It's almost ridiculous how many domains I own. Also @alina…
Ha, yes I have way too many that are kept with good intentions of building on them. But at the same time have been cursing at the amount of great .coms that are being squatted on with no use. I searched for a long time for one I was happy with for my latest project but feel much more comfortable building a business on .com than a new domain.
I refuse to pay the £X,XXX - £XX,XXX squatters want for their sat on domains! Did you ever enquire about makerlog.com?
I use .me and .io also but these are really country-code domains that Google treats as global ones that have a long track history and certain protections also so they do not concern me as much!
Nothing is guaranteed to stay the same or even exist, and that includes gTLDs. We can't base our actions fearing change, because we won't do anything at all. 😄
Many things don't have price caps, but actually the price is sort of capped by the fact that the owner wants to sell. If a company priced their domains at 3k$/year, sales would be very scarce, if at all. There are more expensive premium domains for most TLDs, but otherwise regular price is most of the time accessible.
A very small example: 6 years ago I bought sava.io when less people bought British overseas territory domains. This was before registrars sold .io domains, only the official one nic.io sold them. First years I paid 72 GBP/year (~122$ at that time, ~95$ now), now I pay $28.97/year at Porkbun for the same domain. So price unexpectedly changed over time, but to my advantage.
I know, .io is not a new TLD, but the situation is similar: people are inherently resistant to change/new, and the popularity of new TLDs will grow in time, that's already visible. Even big companies are already buying new, for example Nespresso has coffee.recipes and recipes.coffee (just a random example I remembered, not the best one).
Currently I have 32 domains, of which ~70% are with new TLDs. For some I already built projects, others are coming up. But I sleep ok, not worrying. 😁 Should something change, I'll adapt and find a way.
I always go with .com for international projects - or the country specific TLD if it's a local project. If the .com is taken then I'll go for a completely different name for the project. My personal feeling is that .com is seen as well established and adds perceived authority to the site for some people.
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