That’s what Judith thinks. I’ve charged Snoopy with trolling before myself, which is why I said it was ironic, so I won’t speak for him. I suspect he really means what he said, however, which would mean it’s not trolling no matter how blunt. In my case, however, any review of my comments going back years will readily show that I am anything but a “troll.”
I was just coming back to reply to you in fact. And what I would say is that I believe this kind of conversation is best done in public, not private.
I will also mention that in my humble opinion what I call the “money grab model” by which new gTLDs were introduced, has been flawed from the start, and almost dooming. I know a smart guy who went to Harvard Law and has had a great career. Many years ago he told me he thought domains were not that valuable because they were “infinitely expandable,” i.e. he envisioned this day would come. Well that day has come and gone, and the one who is the most correct about it is Rick Schwartz.
And I’m a guy who is primarily and end user first, not a domain investor first, and I actually even like a few of the new TLDs.
I’ll tell you one example that I like personally which almost everyone in the domain industry either does not like or never even cares to talk about – .Gold.
Long story short, the high pricing on .gold is all wrong, and is more or less guaranteed to make sure it is never widely adopted or used. Perhaps that is what Donuts wants. So what were you all thinking there? I’ve had some education in marketing before, so I might have a few good guesses. For example, perhaps you all were thinking the one dimensional obvious – that the customer base would have to be almost all people involved with literal gold. So then you might think the pricing is okay because of that.
On another note, perhaps you were engaging in “psychological pricing,” thinking that anyone and everyone would not even want .gold unless it had a high price.
Perhaps Donuts is content with low registration and modest profit above whatever it cost to get .gold and run it. Oh well, to each their own I guess.
As someone who is primarily and end user first and has a lot of vision about some things if I can say so myself, however, I will say that .gold is one which could have been popular and well known and widely used if you had only made the price closer to “normal.” And of course I believe you would probably be making a lot more money. Another long story short, since I’ve already written about it in the past, “gold” is one of the most highly “evocative” and highly metaphorically used terms ever. The literal “metallic” application is merely the tip of the iceberg. That term can and does resonate positively with people for all sorts of myriad applications.
But not at the obnoxious pricing at which it is distributed and which is required for renewals, let alone also “premium” renewals. Case closed, end of story, the sad end (already) to what actually could have been a rather nice pleasant new TLD in the wild.