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0 pointseis5y ago0 comments

I'm sorry but I don't buy it. Domain speculators who buy thousands and thousands of domains already get very cheap bulk pricing. Thinking that you would contribute to that problem sounds ridicolous. Also there's plenty of simple ways to prevent this if you wanted to. Like limiting the amount of domains per account, credit card etc. Put it in your TOS and kick people out who do it anyways. Come on...

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4 comments · 1 top-level

eastdakota5y ago· 3 in thread

You may not buy it, but that's the rationale. I'm the one vetoing us turning it on so you're literally talking to the decision maker. We've thought about everything you've suggested and it all feels artificially constrained (e.g., what if you have 11 domains that you really care about?). We're running a bunch of different experiments for different options. We'll open up domain registration at some point, but only when we're confident it lives up to our original promise and still accomplishes what's right for our business. We haven't figured that out yet.

zimbatm5y ago

Isn't speculation affected deterred by higher pricing? What is preventing you to add a "new domain" cost on top of the renewal?

As a customer I would be ready to pay a bit extra rather than go through the purchase at NameCheap. wait 60 days, and then transfer dance.

eastdakota5y ago

We could, but we promised we’d never charge more than the wholesale price. One experiment we’re playing with is bundling a highly discounted Cloudflare plan with new registrations. So you get registration at cost and a paid Cloudflare services at a significant discount.

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eisOP5y ago

I'm aware of who you are but I have no qualms saying that I can't take this as a valid reason. And the example of 11 domains... do you really think this would have any noticeable negative effect on the domain speculation problem? Like I said, they already get those bulk prices. And 11 domains is a tiny number. The contrains are artifical yes, of course, what else could they be? There is no natural limitation here. I guess you ment arbitrary? It will always be arbitrary. Your suggestion to bundle it with a general Cloudflare plan is arbitrary just as well. There are many many ways you can try to lessen the problem. And I get it, bundling it with a budget plan makes sense though I'm not sure if one could 100% claim then that the domain registration is at cost-only. Then it's the same as any webhoster who bundles "free" domains into the mix.

The point of living up to the original promise: the original promise was to offer domain registrations at low prices. You are afraid to not live up to it? Well you don't because you don't allow registrations. You still have a landing page that advertises the service. You have call-to-actions called "register now" and the page [1] tells about new registrations and renewals. Then after clicking on it you land on a domain transfer page that doesn't really tell you that that's the only thing that works right now. So by being afraid to not live up to the promise you actually don't live up to it.

[1] https://www.cloudflare.com/products/registrar/

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