Okay, there has been a lot of talk about about OpenSRS lowering their price
down from $10. First of all, I am not going to tell Tucows how to run their
business. However, we should bring it to their attention about current
domain name market price. Currently, we (OpenSRS RSP) has no way of
competing with NameBargain, a subsidiary of Register.com, in terms of price.
They are selling a domain name for $5.99 a year. They are losing a penny
for every domain name sold. Why are they doing that? Guess...
register.com!!! Register.com has recently purchase both NameBargain.com and
Afternic.com. Register.com is price discriminating domain names. They are
going after all the different markets for domain names. Valued added domain
names, low cost domain names, after market domain name auctions and etc...
With namebargain.com, they are trying to kill off all the low price domain
name sellers. Is it legal? Yes. Selling at loss to kill competitors has
exist for the longest time. Is it right and ethical? I don't think so.
Register.com is trying to create a monopoly for domain names and they are
succeeding. That is Register.com's business plan. Kill off competitors and
monopolize the market. If I was running Register.com, I would have done the
same thing.
So, currently there is no way for us to compete with Namebargain.com
(Register.com) in the low cost domain name market. Our only hope of
competing with Register.com and Networksolutions.com is in the Value Added
domain names, unless of course you are interested in the after market
auctions.
Yes, I do want OpenSRS to lower their prices. I don't see why others are
complaining about RSP asking OpenSRS to consider lowering their prices. If
OpenSRS is keeping prices artificially high, they will lose a lot of RSP and
that in my opinion is not a good business plan. Please don't tell me "why
don't you go buy $5.99 domain names from NameBargain.com then", cause it
means you miss the point. I resell domain names for OpenSRS at a cost of
$10 per domain name, I don't buy them. At namebargain.com, you buy domain
names, not resell them. I and others here are just bringing to OpenSRS's
attention about our (RSP) potential competitors, not a OpenSRS replacement.
--Kit
