As much as I respect Frank, I think Uniregistry is shooting itself in the foot by increasing prices from 10-20 bucks all the way up to $300 per year for some of its extensions (Dot Hosting and Dot Juegos). With some of its other strings (Dot Audio, Dot BlackFriday, Dot Diet, Dot Flowers, Dot HipHop, Dot Guitars and Dot Property), the price is going up from 10-25 bucks to about $100 yearly, whereas for others, the increase will be less dramatic, with the minimum increase taking place with Dot Click and Dot Link ($1 – $2 extra per year).

All in all, I think this move could have unintended consequences.

Why?

Simply because it sets a dangerous precedent.

Now I’m one of the people who has been saying all along that new gTLDs are not worth investing in, so I’m not going to see this from my own perspective (because I made up my mind a long time ago) but rather from the perspective of someone who currently invests in new gTLDs.

If I see that Dot Hosting domains went from costing 10-20 bucks yearly to $300, then I have to say that as of that point, I would never ever touch another Uniregistry gTLD.

Never. Ever.

I mean think about it: a move like this basically ruins your entire business model overnight.

Maybe you got 50 Hot Hosting domains, which will go from costing you $500-$1,000 in yearly renewal fees to setting you back $15,000 each year! This is utter insanity and practically means that all of those who invested in Dot Hosting names flushed money down the drain.

Now again, as much as you respect Frank, please tell me: how would you feel as a domainer who invested in Dot Hosting? Would you ever invest even $1 in another Uniregistry string?

As sorry as I am for saying this, I for one wouldn’t.

Leaving Uniregistry aside, such a situation would make me think not twice but ten times before buying another new gTLD in general. At least with dot com, you know prices won’t go up like that, leaving all of the gazillions of additional benefits aside.

Is this price increase legal?

Most likely.

At the end of the day, Uniregistry and any other registry are well within their rights to charge even $1,000,000,000,000 yearly for a name. It’s their business and they can run it as they see fit.

However, registries need to understand that if they do something like this, domainers will stay away not just from the strings affected by the price increase but from all of the registry’s other strings as well.

Maybe it’s still worth it, I don’t know.

What I am sure of is that for the registry, such a move will have unintended consequences and again, not just with the gTLDs which have been affected by the price hike.

Today’s conclusion takes the form of a simple question:

If you’re a registry, can you blame the domainers who saw you hike prices by as much as 3,000% for deciding to stay away from all of your strings from now on?