Now I’m obviously not surprised that PETA closed their GoDaddy account but I can’t believe how many domainers are willing to follow their example (some of the people who commented on blogs/forums were just trolling but most of them were actually serious) and as a person who values logic/common sense, I want to make it clear that in my opinion, such an approach is just plain childish. Why? Let me explain:
Killing an Elephant and Posting the Video Is Wrong, I Get It!
… but what does that have to do with domaining?
Let’s forget about GoDaddy for a moment and talk about business decisions in general.
Did you lose money as a result of a decision made by the CEO?
Do you think you’ll lose money as a result of a decision made by the CEO?
Are you less than satisfied with their support?
Are their prices no longer competitive?
Those are all examples of things which SHOULD make you think about switching companies because all of them affect your bottom line and business decisions should be made based on facts related to your business!
Now let’s talk about GoDaddy again.
Did you lose money as a result of a decision made by the Bob Parsons?
Nope!
Do you think you’ll lose money as a result of a decision made by the CEO?
Nope and I honestly hope nobody posts comments which contain far-fetched scenarios such as “but his actions will have a negative impact on the legitimacy of our industry and that will ultimately make me lose money”. A few weeks from now or as soon as Charlie Sheen gets a haircut, the general public will even forget who GoDaddy’s CEO is.
Are you less than satisfied with their support?
In my opinion, GoDaddy’s support is amazing. I have about 1k domains there at the moment of writing, so they gave me an executive account but even if I had a regular account, I could still call them on a Sunday and talk to an actual person.
Are their prices no longer competitive?
If you use coupons, you can pretty much always take advantage of great deals. But hey, maybe another company can beat their prices and they convinced you to hop on board. That I can understand because I have absolutely nothing against decisions based on common sense business realities.
This is actually the main point I’m trying to get across, I have nothing against common sense business decisions but on the other hand, I want to make it perfectly clear that in my opinion:
Business Decisions Based on Emotion = Childish
To sum it all up:
Bob Parsons is who he is and the US is a free country last time I checked, I honestly don’t care what he does in his free time. As long as GoDaddy treats me with respect and as long as our business partnership makes financial sense, they can count on me as a long-term customer.
April 3rd, 2011 at 5:43 pm
“Business Decisions Based on Emotion = Childish”
Amen!
April 3rd, 2011 at 5:50 pm
Maybe someone should start a politically correct reg company…just $99 for a .com,sleep well at night knowing all our employees are vegetarians hehehe
April 3rd, 2011 at 7:26 pm
I never liked GoDaddy before he killed Jumbo. Any seasoned domainer can give you a litany of reasons why. Their shortcomings are not uncommon knowledge. This was simply the icing on the cake. And as far as a CEO’s actions go, there’s an old saying, “The fish stinks from the head down.”
April 3rd, 2011 at 7:50 pm
@David: I agree with you that any seasoned domainer can list several flaws GoDaddy has, just like I hope you’ll agree with me that any seasoned domainer can list several things which work in its favor.
For example: out of all end user sales you’ve had, what company do most of them want the domain to be transferred to? I’m sure the answer is “GoDaddy” by a huge margin and this fact alone makes working with them quite convenient.
I actually had an end user sale that took place in less than an hour after we agreed on the final price thanks to GoDaddy about a month ago. The domain was sold for ~$1k, I did a bit of research on the seller and he seemed legit enough for me to be willing to handle the transaction via PayPal ($1k isn’t a huge amount anyway, so I always go with my gut feeling when it comes to transactions like this one). I was online, he was online. He sent the money, I pushed the domain to his GoDaddy account. If the domain would have been registered at a less popular company, the seller would have probably wanted it transferred away from the company in question and that would have delayed things (my additional investment of time for this specific transaction wouldn’t have been outrageously high but it all adds up).
As mentioned previously though, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with switching from one company to another or with eliminating a company from the equation altogether as long as the decision is based on business-related factors. Maybe you didn’t like the way they handled a problem you had, maybe you didn’t like the way they handled a problem someone you know had, maybe you don’t like something else about the way they run their business.
On the other hand, choosing to terminate a business relationship with a company because the CEO killed an elephant is just plain wrong. Would I have killed the elephant? No. Do I think that what he did is wrong? Yes but the bottom line is that what he does in his free time has nothing to do with the services his company provides and as long as I’m satisfied as a customer, there are no logically sound reasons to terminate the partnership IMO.
April 3rd, 2011 at 8:22 pm
Andrei, sometimes ethics override business, even if you have to lose money to prove a point.
Without any ethics this world would be Somalia and we’d be cutting each other’s heads off if we could make a buck doing it.
Am I going to quit doing biz with GoDaddy? No. I have to do business to some degree to be in this biz, but I can sure put a dent in their business by transferring a nice portion of domains away from them. I’ve identified a tranche of several thousand domains that I can move to Fabulous with no problems since I won’t be selling them anyhow at any price.
If you put business above ethics sir, then you are not being true to your soul, if you have one.
Nothing childish about being true to one’s soul.
For me, I’m going to do everything I can to hurt their biz. This is how we change the world. Get it? One person at a time. Stand up for what you believe in, even if you believe killing the elephant was right.
.
April 3rd, 2011 at 10:59 pm
@PPC: I believe in fighting against fundamental logical flaws and in my opinion, you are blowing things way out of proportion. You aren’t changing the world by losing money as a result of making a business decision for the wrong reasons, you’re simply making a wrong business decision.
By using words such as “ethics”/”being true to your soul” followed by “For me, Iām going to do everything I can to hurt their biz.”, you are:
1) contradicting yourself
2) proving that you’re letting emotion get in the way of reason
3) proving that you have a lot to learn when it comes to the real world
If you want to make a difference and change the world, donate the money you’d save/earn by making the right business decisions to a cause you believe in instead of letting emotion cloud your judgment. By making illogical business decisions, you aren’t somehow losing money to make the world a better place, you’re just losing money š
April 3rd, 2011 at 11:06 pm
dump way to look at things: Suppose I read USA Today each day and they are two coffee shop near my house. It’s the same service (newspaper) so I will always choose one if the other is a d*ck or gives me bad vibes.
Is Godaddy giving you something you cannot get from others? Is it cheaper? By saying “terminating a business relationship” you make it seems as someone turned down business or money for what may be a secondary and unrelated thing, such as torturing cats.
April 3rd, 2011 at 11:19 pm
@John: if two services are identical (a purely hypothetical situation because in the real world, one service is always better than the other, maybe it’s only better by a small margin but it’s better nonetheless), then from a business standpoint, there’s no such thing as a wrong decision in this case. Whatever your decision may be and whichever reason you had for making that decision, you’re not going to lose money by choosing one company over another.
If GoDaddy and RegistrarA have identical prices/customer service/whatever and you choose RegistrarA because you don’t like Bob Parsons, you’re not making a bad business decision, simply because you’re not making a decision which will have financial losses as a consequence since in our purely hypothetical situation, the two companies are identical.
Now on the other hand, if GoDaddy puts a better offer than RegistrarA on the table and you choose RegistrarA because Bob Parsons did something you consider wrong (even if it is wrong but not wrong in a way that has to do with business) then yes, you’re making a bad business decision, as explained through this article.
April 3rd, 2011 at 11:28 pm
Most businesses ain’t ethical.The paper you’re writing on exists because a tree was killed,your shoes exist because they were manufactured by third world country children working in an environment that’s inhumane etc///does this stop you from using paper or wearing shoes?if you boycotted every business like I see suggestions of boycotting godaddy,you’d have to stop buying anything.I think this post is spot on and as much as I’m disgusted by the man who owns godaddy,it would be stupid to stop using gd because of this.
April 4th, 2011 at 9:12 am
I agree with your point, mostly. Personally I am a Godaddy costumer even though many have told me that Bob supports the homosexual agenda and hides behind the GoDaddy girls.
But at some point you don’t want to put money in the pocket of a scumbag. If Bin Laden or Charles Manson offered $1 off regs and still made a profit, would you do it?
April 4th, 2011 at 9:40 am
@TrillionDollarMedia: please don’t tell me you’re comparing a rich dude who shot an elephant to a terrorist and a psychopath, both cold blooded murderers.
As an answer to your question:
1) Every country in the world has a (more or less effective) system which has putting terrorists/psychopaths/etc. behind bars as its objective
2) A terrorist or a murderer will never openly admit what he/she did on the “About Us” page of his or her company.
3) As a result, you will never know if the CEO of a company you work with is a terrorist/murderer until after he gets caught and after he gets caught, let’s just say he won’t be in a position to keep running the previously mentioned company. What this means is that you will never be put in a situation which involves making a decision like the one you asked me about after comparing a guy who shot an elephant to 2 of the world’s most dangerous cold blooded killers.
April 4th, 2011 at 9:52 am
so… according to your logic… hitler would’ve been a fine fellow to do business with… even if you were jewish.
April 4th, 2011 at 9:52 am
Btw, I registered TrillionDollarMedia.com after reading your comment. Guess which company I chose? I’ll give you a hint: “_ _ DADDY” š
April 4th, 2011 at 9:54 am
@todaro: please re-read the comment directly above yours.
April 4th, 2011 at 10:17 am
elephants are smart creatures but for me this is not a reason to quit buying domains on Godaddy
many ceo like him have similar personalities like Trump so it may be success makes smart men make these mistakes but still not enough reason to stop buying domains on Godaddy
April 4th, 2011 at 10:43 am
i like elephants… i don’t even know why. i have an account @ godaddy but mostly just for transferring newly bought domains from other people who have godaddy accounts before i transfer them out. i have to admit it has gotten much better but when i opened my account there it was a spambox where you had to work hard to find the NEXT button. ernest hemmingway shot elephants… i liked ernest hemmingway… but that was a different time. anyway… it’s my money and i can do what i want with it. now if he wants to send the godaddy girls over to my house i might be willing to reconsider.
April 4th, 2011 at 11:03 am
@todaro: Danica Patrick and Jillian Michaels are currently unavailable but Joan Rivers thinks you’re hot, should I email her your phone number? š
April 4th, 2011 at 11:24 am
omg omg… joan rivers… ok… she wouldn’t be my first choice but beggars can’t be choosers. truthfully… i’m livin’ under the bridge now but if i can round up ten dollars i could register bussestocanada.com and develop it into the premier website for people who just wanna get the hell out of america but not go too far or make a serious commitment to anything. i need a woman who has that kinda money.
April 5th, 2011 at 4:21 am
how he do that..i hate this type of peoples those who kill animals.
April 6th, 2011 at 6:50 pm
You are an idiot! Go ahead don’t approve this comment! Sellout!
April 7th, 2011 at 10:39 am
@”Bob Parsons”: as you can see, I never delete comments. Now, as a gesture of respect, maybe you can use your real name when commenting on DT from now on š