I was looking for a domain name for an app I'm working on, and one of the options I tried was self.app. To my surprise, it was available! Some time after buying the domain, I got an email from my registrar, saying tha the purchaise failed because *self.app is a premium domain", meaning that the domain vendor will only sell it for a higher price.
Nowin some way, this feels similar to the net neutrality issue. A domain name vendor should sell domain names at a certain rate, no matter the nature of the name being bought. On the other hand, I can see the argument that this is just how markets like this work: short domain names are more valuable, so they're sold at a higher price.
What are your thoughts?
Top comments (5)
I have registered a "premium" .app domain myself last year when the tld was released. I was very annoyed when the price of the domain increased by almost 50% this year, so I guess there is also no guarantee that the price you registered the domain for will not drastically increase in the future?
It is really bad when you think about it.
You registered a domain, put all your money and effort for the banding, one day, just when you starting to see the return, the domain fee become x10 expensive.
The register is basically siting there and waiting to loot somebody. Serving a 3 letters domain costs no more money than a 30 letters one if not less, so they don't have the right to charge for more.
I'm not interested in investing in domain names. To the countrary, I wish there was some kind of policy that required domain names to actually be used for something within a year of being registered, to avoid domain name squatters buying up domains just to sell them on without adding any value.
not sure if one year especially when some projects just take a while, and you wanna get the name well in advance, but when sites clearly just have an ad space and nothing more on them for several years it sux, like my1.com was something I wanted to get because it sounds cool, but nope, interestingly when I wanted to ask the whois email address about selling the domain god knows when, the email bounced, not sure if it's allowed to have a boucing whois email.
I think some good-faith solution for this might be nice.
I didn't. Google's check on get.app also says it's taken. hostnet.nl, a dutch registrar where I have all my names, said it was available yesterday, haven't checked today.