this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2024
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251
Elizabeth Warren calls for crackdown on Internet “monopoly” you’ve never heard of (arstechnica.com)
submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 157 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Tldr: Verisign, the registrar of the .com tld. They have been jacking up domain prices.

[–] [email protected] 80 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (5 children)

Year,Wholesale Price (USD)

2012,$7.85
2013,$7.85
2014,$7.85
2015,$7.85
2016,$7.85
2017,$7.85
2018,$7.85
2019,$7.85
2020,$7.85
2021,$8.39
2022,$8.97
2023,$9.59
2024,$10.26
[–] [email protected] 7 points 23 hours ago

Also, domain names used to be free.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

What did they cost in the early 00’s? I vaguely remember it being a lot compared to these prices.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 day ago

IIRC, when Verisign had a registrar monopoly, they were charging $35/yr with 2 years up front.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 day ago (1 children)

So, by percentage that's:

2021,6.9%
2022,6.9%
2023,6.9%
2024,7.0%

I'm not sure those raises are justified, but we did just go through a period of high inflation, and even a business like Verisign has employees and other expenses that got more expensive. I'll be interested to see where this story goes.

[–] [email protected] 60 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Verisign is a government granted monopoly who's primary job is to maintain a database of who owns what domains. That job is largely automated. The actual end user sales are delegated to dealers; Verisign doesn't even do much of that. I'd be surprised if they had 500 employees.

All they really need to do is run a database server. Not even a big one, like Google copying the entire public internet.

They get fees from every domain every year. The servers get cheaper and more efficient every year. I'd be stunned if there was any reasonable excuse for these price increases.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago (2 children)

any reasonable excuse for these price increases.

Profit.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 day ago

Skimming through their financial reports it seems they needed to the money to finance share a buyback program. So they are helping the ~~rich people money~~ economy.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Not a reasonable excuse.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

Derp, I forgot to add that in before posting.

It was going to be a big long gripe about profit seeking bullshit... but then I'd just be preaching to the choir ;-)

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That's more than a 30% increase!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I want my own tld