#4 in 2017: A fresh TLD death spiral?
This is the seventh in a series covering the top stories on DNW in 2017, as ranked by views.
It’s been apparent for years that fresh top level domains aren’t meeting the expectations applicants had for the domains. A big fresh TLD cheerleader succumbed to this reality earlier this year.
Frank Schilling disclosed a major price hike for most of Uniregistry’s top level domain names early in 2017. (This set a lot of balls in motion that are the subject of the #2 story of the year.)
Schilling admitted that his expectations for sales were not being met. He came on the DNW Podcast to talk regarding the price hike and why it was necessary. Schilling stated that he was in the red on many of these domains and wanted to get them to profitability. Also, if he could do it all over again, he would have applied for a different set of domains.
One of the reasons I believe Rightside sold itself this year was since it was becoming evident that it wasn’t going to meet the expectations it set in the market for fresh TLD revenue. Its revenue from fresh domains actually started falling quarter-over-quarter when it promised lofty growth within the next few years.
Are fresh top level domain names dead? Hardly. Some of the biggest players are doing quite well and spinning off lots of cash. But it became clear (or clearer) in 2017 that some models aren’t going to work.
