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Comment by hk__2 | Hacker News Reader

Something that scares me regarding domain names is their variable cost. I purchased a .sexy domain for a joke website and its price got raised by +70% less than one year after that, making the joke a lot less appealing. There’s no guarantee that when you purchase a domain name it reasonably stays around that price for years.

Build a business on a domain -> the name increase by XX% -> you’re screwed and must pay.

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If it's a joke, okay, 70% might hurt.

.sexy is about 60-100$ per year. If you've build a business on it, paying double the amount should not hurt.

For me the most important thing about this new gTLDs is more about reputation of the gTLD registry. What if these go out of service? I'm pretty sure that there exist a protocol for that case, but I'm also sure that domains in a less popular new gTLD space might get far less protection from ICANN than any non-sponsored gTLD.

> sexy is about 60-100$ per year. If you've build a business on it, paying double the amount should not hurt

I feel the issue is the lack of transparency and control. Who is to say some registrar won't start charging people per visit or % revenue in the future?

Sure, I hear you. If it's a registrar, it's okay, simply change it. For a registry, I believe that they would risk their mass market business cases, but I'm also very sceptical about those ngTLDs for that reason.

Avoid the new gTLDs. Most are mismanaged crap. The gTLD system was the greedist and worst decision ICANN ever made.

Stick with tried and true domains - ideally .com, but your country's ccTLD is another good choice.

ccTLDs can have similar issues to the new gTLDs - the administration of those is contracted out by ICANN too, usually to a State level body of some kind. The quality of these varies hugely as well. This is also why countries with desirable ccTLDs like .tv (Tuvalu) abuse their position by charging more for their TLD.

.io as used in this example was a ccTLD, and this issue was directly caused by its mismanagement.

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