We are moving to a new, worse time. Have been for a while.
I do not want to reward that investment at all.
This is 100% true. And yet, for the average person, it's viewed as the default mysterious string that ends a website's "name". Anything else is viewed as slightly questionable, although most people are aware of .org and .net as sometimes legitimate exceptions. I think most people would be less likely to enter their credit card information on a ".biz" domain, even though they couldn't express any accurate reason why that made it less trustworthy. That's significant, even if it makes no technological difference.
people.org people.health people.art
The last two actually imply what they are about, but the .org could be anything.
Trust and faith in the service associated with a domain needs to be built with standard channels like word of mouth, advertising, good business practices, etc.
I do care about that happening with .org
The .org matters. I would say these new owners don't get that, but I think they do, and think they have position to just rent seek, essentially trading on something that matters to just about the point where it doesn't so much.
Not going there. End game is .org no longer matters.
Fine. Might as well not contribute to the whole mess.
That will prove irresistible. Too easy.
And unnecessary.
Flat out, someone got pitched about an easy money machine, with strong second sale potential.
And it is, and will be too.
It is because .org was not supposed to be about these kinds of things.
Well, now it is. With no value added. Just rent seeking.
Maybe in the future much stronger legal means can prevent this kind of thing from happening.
I get it. The money is good.
It just will not come from me. Have seen this movie enough times to know how it ends now.
It is sad, and it sucks.
The problem is '.org' is in the private equity game now and when you go down that path, value is extracted and entities end up stripped of assets, loaded with debt and eventually stagnate. Private equity investment does not invest for community goodwill, it is a value extraction mission. Even if it is for investment, as much value or growth that can be extracted before it is available for investment is the modus operandi see Softbank with WeWork, Uber etc. You can see Ethos Capital goals and history where again creating returns and value extraction is the only goal. [4][5] Since it is a new entity there is very little ability to predict what this firm does or will do with their investment targets.
If this is the new game in TLDs then there could be some price collusion incoming, meaning more expensive for small/medium/institutions that are trying to compete or do public good.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauritius
[2] https://ethoscapital.mu/contact/contact-us/
[3] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/11/20/org_registry_sale_s...
[4] https://ethoscapital.mu/what-we-do/advisor-ethos-private-equ...