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Jackie Liu’s post on CircleID raises some very interesting questions, though whether or not any answers will be forthcoming or not is a totally different matter.
While a lot of ccTLDs are dropping their wholesale rates others are raising them (or have raised them).
The problem, as Liu points out, is that registrants aren’t consulted about the price hikes or given any other options for their existing domains. End result. They either “bite the bullet” on the new pricing or simply let their domains expire.
Of course, if the price increase were only a matter of a couple of dollars it wouldn’t be much of an issue. You could argue that a price increase might bring a better level of service of stability to registrants and registrars alike.
But what about price increases of several hundred percent?
Is that reasonable?
Liu has contacted ICANN about the situation, but I doubt that this will have much impact, as ICANN’s role in relation to ccTLDs is very different compared to its role (and mandate) with respect to gTLDs. Of course I could be completely mistaken…
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You might want to review the mecenary tactics of the legacy Registry operators who milked the various ccTLDs in the past and paid little or nothing to the local communities. Some countries are just now recognising how they have been duped and are in the process of setting a ‘fair’ price. The race to the bottom is only viable if you run many Registries or run the Registry for a large country.
Ok. So some of the legacy operators may not have put money back into the local countries, but does that justify making the existing registrants suffer?