Ask HN: Increase the annual cost of domain names to $40-50. would you vote yes? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Increase the annual cost of domain names to $40-50. would you vote yes?

4 pointsamitu8 comments

So many good domain go wasted because its too cheap to own a domain. Most people seriously interested in web would not mind shelling out that that kind of money, only hoarders and low cost SPAM sites would really mind. No?

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There are a lot of students in economically backward countries who won't be able to shell out $50 for a hobby project. I remember my first domain name which I purchased as soon as I got a card capable of internet transactions. I certainly wouldn't have went ahead with that purchase if it costed $50.

Look at some of the most visited websites; google.com, Facebook.com, twitter.com, yahoo.com… Those are not "good domains". Prior to the ascension of the web, they weren't even words in most people's lexicon. If there's anything we can learn from the web, it's that "a good domain" is not a big factor in the success of a product. Consequently, increasing the price would only restrict the number of websites; it would not increase quality.

As an extra note, Dropbox started as getdropbox.com. As onion2k mentioned, "good domains" don't play a very big factor in a project's success.

Well, what does "success" look like to you? Let's make it $50 and say that it "works" - what does that mean?

Answer that and I'll spend the time to ask follow-ups. I don't feel like investing 20 minutes to come up with a well thought out answer when you likely spent all of two minutes writing out the initial thought.

I like the low barrier to enry. (read low cost). I think a lot of hobbyists probably wouldn't be around, and as others have mentioned the undeveloped countries would have a harder time getting domains.

I like the idea that my son could register a domain on cheaply and use it to learn.

The Whole world doesn't run on dollars you know. No to this.

Personally, I feel that $40-$50 is a huge number.

Exchange rates would make it unfeasible

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