Is the .com extension really so valuable?

temperase1.jpgMy response to Mark, the author of Domain Aftermarket Overdue…
“”There are things I saw in the comments to that article that didn’t make much sense. One domainer said that your theory about “all it takes is browsers placing a search box in the navigation bar” is impossible and will never happen. This is typical, and I see that in my domainer friends as well. For the information of your commenters, what you say is already hapenning in Firefox since a long time ago now, and it stays like that update after update (which means that people don’t’ mind, or that even if it is so, Google or anyone has the power to force the browser into it without the browser losing significant market share). Another point I see they’re wrong, is that they act as if the .com extension is untouchable, or they play in a finite market. For me it is not so, for example when a UK company buys a .co.uk, the .com extension loses a potential buyer. And many people will follow.
Domainers believe that prices will always go up because people will pay anything for their domains. I don’t see this happening. If a small business can’t have the .com, it won’t stop doing business, it will just buy the extension they can afford. Would it have been better the .com? most probably. Is it essential to survive or do business, thus pushing prices of .com’s to the stratosphere? No. Or not for much longer.
Another thing domains don’t want to see, is that as there are .co.uk and other extensions that didn’t exist before, I don’t see why new extensions couldn’t be brought in in the future, thus eroding even more tha value of .com.
Another reason is that countries usually push more or less openly their own extension. I lived in Spain, and the “de facto” there is “.es” The .com is the weird one. Users don’t care who has the .com, because they would never visit it or type it in the first place.
In China the government wants to “force” into the population the .cn extension, I heard, and domains in their own language.
In india, they want to do the same about their own language.
So maybe I am very wrong, but I cannot see such high value as domainers are trying to make us believe in .com’s (just in case, I own a few domains myself, you never know!)
I don’t think what they say is not true, what I just think is that it is being exaggerated 1000 times, there definitely is a bubble about the .com extension, and that the basic assumptions of domainers about .com and the future is flawed. As an “apprentice Futurist” ;), my job is to see the big picture, and many of these guys seem to be too emotionally involved in the matter as to see the big picture anymore…

April 27, 2007 · Filed Under Analysis, Business, Domains, Future, Internet

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