Namebio.com restrict (more) free content?

[Domainication]

Did anyone noticed the fact that namebio only shows five search results from now on too?

I guess we will need a membership for (full) results now - which is defenetly worth it but i did not read about a statement at all (social media, etc.) - am i missing something?

 

[Michael]

Thanks @Michael for clearing things up!
(and thank you too for leading me the way to pay by paypal - that was exactly what i'm looking for)

I'm happy to stay as a customer to support namebio with my subscription.

The only suggestion i got is that you really need to communicate those major changes before they go live.
Then the panic we all got would be smoother at all. There are so many great 'Bloggers' in the industry (like @DomainSherpa, etc.) or social media where you could have told about the upcoming movement and the reasons why it is necessary.

I would have totally enjoyed an written interview between you and our high class Blogger @Bob Hawkes here on namepros f.e.

Thanks, much appreciated!

That's a fair point, I should have communicated the change better. I wrote up a blog post (where some of my initial reply to this thread came from), but decided to hold off on publishing it at the last minute. For something major like getting rid of the free version entirely, or raising prices, I definitely would have published something. But since it was just a more restricted free version, I guess I was worried I might turn it into a bigger deal than it is by making an announcement. Sorry, bad call.

 

[JB Lions]

Thanks, much appreciated!

That's a fair point, I should have communicated the change better. I wrote up a blog post (where some of my initial reply to this thread came from), but decided to hold off on publishing it at the last minute. For something major like getting rid of the free version entirely, or raising prices, I definitely would have published something. But since it was just a more restricted free version, I guess I was worried I might turn it into a bigger deal than it is by making an announcement. Sorry, bad call.

I think there might be issues with the reset code. Tried to login, got Invalid Credentials, Then hit Forgot Password link and not getting any emails to reset. Not in SPAM folder either.

I think $60 a year is fair, but you might get more signups if you bumped it up to 100 results per search. 25 a little low.

 

[Michael]

Your services are worth the value for those selling domain names. I wish more of us were making money, but the reg costs are now eating into profits.

Thanks for the kind words. I hear ya, there are quite a few subscriptions that come in handy for domainers, but it's difficult to balance all that with acquiring and renewing domains; and at the end of the day the sales have to be there to justify any of it.

I've tried several times in the past to organize group memberships. For example, one company could buy memberships in bulk from places like NameBio, DomainIQ, Efty, Estibot, etc. for a fraction of the cost and then bundle them into a domainer starter package. That would allow people to have all the tools that they need, at a much lower cost than subscribing to all of those services individually. But for the life of me I couldn't get any momentum behind it, even though there was some mild interest.

I think it would be a good fit for a service that already has memberships, or has a massive audience, or both. But it could even have legs as a stand-alone business. Imagine if GoDaddy's Domain Discount Club included subscriptions to all the most popular services. Or it could even work for NamePros, create a Platinum tier that includes a bunch of other subscriptions.

Maybe some day.

 

[magnificentdomains]

I think if it's definitely worth it. It probably isn't if you are just dabbling in the niche. In that case you could just use their limited results with GD appraiser similar sales and that should suffice. But it's definitely important data for investors and also reasonable.

 

[Michael]

I think there might be issues with the reset code. Tried to login, got Invalid Credentials, Then hit Forgot Password link and not getting any emails to reset. Not in SPAM folder either.

I think $60 a year is fair, but you might get more signups if you bumped it up to 100 results per search. 25 a little low.

I haven't had any other reports of resetting the password not working, and I just tried it myself and got the email a few seconds later. Usually the problem is putting the wrong email address, we don't display an error when that happens, otherwise an attacker could spam that to find out which emails have accounts. Shoot me a PM and I'll get you sorted.

Noted on the number of results, thanks for the feedback. The problem is that with sorts and other filters the number of results you can see grows exponentially pretty quickly. Just with sorting and without any extra filters 25 turns into 100 with just a few clicks. And it can turn into thousands if you check one venue at a time while also messing with the sort. There aren't a ton of searches that have more than 100 results, unless you're doing broad searches like LLLL and such, or extremely popular keywords.

 

[VivifyDomains]

Seems pretty reasonable to me, it's a hugely useful tool that has been free for a very long time and still technically is but even the paid plans are nothing compared with the value you get.

 

[okaydomains]

For example, one company could buy memberships in bulk from places like NameBio, DomainIQ, Efty, Estibot, etc. for a fraction of the cost and then bundle them into a domainer starter package. That would allow people to have all the tools that they need, at a much lower cost than subscribing to all of those services individually.

The problem with bundling is that usually one or two services end up subsidizing the rest. So the bundle ends up being mostly a discounted way to get e.g., Estibot, and that is not appealing to Estibot. (We used to see this back in the day and most bundles ended up being a way to get discounted Twilio credits, as one example.)

 

[Fayaz Ahmed]

I don't care about FREE account to be honest. 100, 10, 5, or 0 - it's up to the company. If they failed to monetize the free users from Ads, then it doesn't make sense to entertain the free accounts. Totally understandable.

But previously it was 100 results per search for free accounts & now it's 25 results for $10/month (or $60/year)!
That's not something I understand. I get more sales record from Namepros & Twitter, with screenshots.

I hope I'm getting something wrong. What's the catch really?

IMHO, keep the price point, do whatever you want with the free account, but increase the Results Per Search for your paid accounts. That'll be reasonable.

How about: 250, 500 & 2000 Results Per Search for $10, $25 & $100 accounts respectively (with 50% yearly subscription discount as it already is)?

I'd be interested with $10/month ($60/year) account if it shows 250 Results per search (or something close). Otherwise I don't need it really. I only have 150 or so names. I used to check namebio to somewhat understand the trend, I don't use it for pricing.

In any case, I only wish you all the best
Fayaz.

 

[kor]

While there were 100 free listings until yesterday, it has now been reduced to 5! Which makes no sense.

If I want to switch to the most affordable package to access 100 listings, it has been reduced from 100 listings to 25! I would say something for that but forum rules don't allow it.

Moreover, for the service I pay for, are you suggesting that I should waste my time sorting and filtering each query to exceed the limits?

This is sheer nonsense in every way!

I wish you success with your egoistic approach @Michael!

I've already switched to alternative sources.

 

[alcy]

like I said sometimes is not what u do but how u go bout doing it... I feel this constant cut down and more limit approach wrong..
but hey maybe I'm wrong... guess we all have views... either way nobody who put few solid year learning dn need namebio... is just fun to view other sales .. but those never matter compared fo make your own...
that be said we at np here still get. nice reports...sedo...dyna...dnjournal etc..plus sale thread... but hey u wanna pay namebio is yo money
..personally I wouldn't pay just for the I'll lmit u approach... long ads approach etc... but that's me... and thats u..so everyone good luck.. turulu

ps oh ya what other sale sites are.there? unreportedsales.com seem total mess... let's list some for fun.

 

[Michael]

While there were 100 free listings until yesterday, it has now been reduced to 5! Which makes no sense.

If I want to switch to the most affordable package to access 100 listings, it has been reduced from 100 listings to 25! I would say something for that but forum rules don't allow it.

Moreover, for the service I pay for, are you suggesting that I should waste my time sorting and filtering each query to exceed the limits?

This is sheer nonsense in every way!

I wish you success with your egoistic approach @Michael!

I've already switched to alternative sources.

No, I'm not suggesting as a paying subscriber that you should have to sort/filter each query, but that doesn't mean it isn't possible. It would be on you to pick a tier where you don't need to do that if it bothers you.

For casual users the free registration will still be plenty. It's 10 results not 5, and with sorting it easily goes to 40, and with filtering it goes to hundreds or even thousands but that takes a lot more time. Really you should be thinking of the limit as "how many I can see with zero extra effort sorting/filtering" not as a hard/finite limit.

For heavier users they might need Collector, and for power users they'll probably need Domainer. We do have a tier available where you won't need to constantly sort/filter to see what you need, but that'll be different for everyone depending on usage. If you're paying and still finding yourself constantly sorting to see more, and that's not a tradeoff you're happy to make for spending less money, then you signed up for the wrong tier.

The fact remains that sorting/filtering is still possible, so we have to factor that into the limits when setting them, both for free users and for the membership tiers. This makes the limits sound much lower than they really are, which is unfortunate but unavoidable.

The alternative would be to show more results and make sorting/filtering the paywalls (don't allow free users to use that functionality), but that seemed like it would be way more harmful to users and make it borderline impossible to find good comps.

I guess by now you've probably realized the main alternative was pretty much abandoned more than two years ago and hasn't been tracking most venues that whole time. And the secondary alternatives are either intentionally only tracking what we don't track, or tracking an extremely specific niche within the domain industry.

 

[Michael]

like I said sometimes is not what u do but how u go bout doing it... I feel this constant cut down and more limit approach wrong..
but hey maybe I'm wrong... guess we all have views... either way nobody who put few solid year learning dn need namebio... is just fun to view other sales .. but those never matter compared fo make your own...
that be said we at np here still get. nice reports...sedo...dyna...dnjournal etc..plus sale thread... but hey u wanna pay namebio is yo money
..personally I wouldn't pay just for the I'll lmit u approach... long ads approach etc... but that's me... and thats u..so everyone good luck.. turulu

ps oh ya what other sale sites are.there? unreportedsales.com seem total mess... let's list some for fun.

I'm not sure I would define one cut down in 16 years as "constant", seems a bit dramatic.

I completely understand, some people are more than willing to watch ads or deal with sorting/filtering, if that means saving money. Everyone values their time differently. If I had a problem with that we'd switch to 100% paid. We just can't keep giving away 95% of what even the heaviest users need for free.

I'm probably biased, but I think even people with years of experience would benefit from learning more. Sure, they can probably price their domains without looking up comps. But nobody can know everything all the time, and I have to think "the more info the better".

That's why I have a tremendous amount of respect for Michael Cyger for example, even though he's deeply knowledgeable and incredibly experienced he's never done learning and absorbing more data. It shows humility, wisdom, and drive. People who think they've already learned all there is to learn are hurting themselves.

In reality, I think most experienced domainers who say "I don't need to see sales reports" are actually looking at them, they're just trying to use it as some kind of weird flex to signal how good they are.

 

[Michael]

I don't care about FREE account to be honest. 100, 10, 5, or 0 - it's up to the company. If they failed to monetize the free users from Ads, then it doesn't make sense to entertain the free accounts. Totally understandable.

But previously it was 100 results per search for free accounts & now it's 25 results for $10/month (or $60/year)!
That's not something I understand. I get more sales record from Namepros & Twitter, with screenshots.

I hope I'm getting something wrong. What's the catch really?
Show attachment 235357

IMHO, keep the price point, do whatever you want with the free account, but increase the Results Per Search for your paid accounts. That'll be reasonable.

How about: 250, 500 & 2000 Results Per Search for $10, $25 & $100 accounts respectively (with 50% yearly subscription discount as it already is)?

I'd be interested with $10/month ($60/year) account if it shows 250 Results per search (or something close). Otherwise I don't need it really. I only have 150 or so names. I used to check namebio to somewhat understand the trend, I don't use it for pricing.

In any case, I only wish you all the best
Fayaz.

Thanks for the feedback and the kind words.

What we did previously, while difficult to forget/ignore, isn't really relevant to the current situation. When the model is primarily advertising, giving away as much as possible is the goal. The limits only existed to stop scrapers, if people didn't abuse the site we would have had no limits whatsoever. It isn't fair to compare the limits for a different business model to the limits now, they obviously can't be close or we'll get no subscribers.

The limits are not designed to be relative to what we had previously, they're designed to be relative to usage groups, and to get the matching user into the appropriate tier. Casual users (probably 95%) who aren't profitable yet should still be just fine if they register an account for free. People who are starting to "get it" (probably 4%) and need more data with less effort should be just fine on Collector. The people who do hundreds or even thousands of searches per day (probably less than 1%) should be fine on Domainer. And companies (probably less than 0.1%) will hopefully get on the Business one.

With the limits you suggested, when factoring in sorting filtering, nobody would need above Collector tier, even established companies. Collectors would be able to see 1,000 results with just a few quick sorts. Not many searches even have 1,000 results unless you're being intentionally broad (dictionary.com, short domains, ccTLDs, etc). And even when they do have more than 1,000 I doubt many people actually need/want to see all of them.

Again, the limit is not a hard limit, it's basically just how many results you can see with zero extra effort sorting and filtering. It's actually much higher than it appears. 10 is really 40 with a few extra seconds of work, or hundreds with a few extra minutes of work per search. 25 is really 100 with a few extra seconds or thousands with a few extra minutes.

The number doesn't even really matter, with enough permutations on sorts/filters you could theoretically still see the entire database on the free version. It would take ages though and careful planning. It's more about how much are you willing to pay to save time/hassle and get some extra perks/features, and we have options for everyone including people who aren't willing to pay anything.

 

[karmaco]

I think the fact that the lowest paid tier doesn’t even match what was free before and that you didn’t make any formal announcement is to just going to have the opposite result of what you want by alienating domainers.

I do understand the need to monetize what you have built but all this sorting talk— most of us don’t have all day to apply repeated sorts to maximize a tiny quota.

People pay for things that are fast, convenient, helpful and priced fairly for what is being given.

This change makes it harder to use and less appealing and more restrictive —which is a shame because it really is a great database you have accumulated.

I don’t think you are going to gain many on that bottom tier by reducing what limits were previously free. Maybe that doesn’t matter because you are focused more on the other tiers it seems.

Realistically the bottom tier should be a priority because more people can afford that one.

If people are abusing the system you should block them not punish everyone else.

 

[Fayaz Ahmed]

Thanks for the feedback and the kind words.

What we did previously, while difficult to forget/ignore, isn't really relevant to the current situation. When the model is primarily advertising, giving away as much as possible is the goal. The limits only existed to stop scrapers, if people didn't abuse the site we would have had no limits whatsoever. It isn't fair to compare the limits for a different business model to the limits now, they obviously can't be close or we'll get no subscribers.

The limits are not designed to be relative to what we had previously, they're designed to be relative to usage groups, and to get the matching user into the appropriate tier. Casual users (probably 95%) who aren't profitable yet should still be just fine if they register an account for free. People who are starting to "get it" (probably 4%) and need more data with less effort should be just fine on Collector. The people who do hundreds or even thousands of searches per day (probably less than 1%) should be fine on Domainer. And companies (probably less than 0.1%) will hopefully get on the Business one.

With the limits you suggested, when factoring in sorting filtering, nobody would need above Collector tier, even established companies. Collectors would be able to see 1,000 results with just a few quick sorts. Not many searches even have 1,000 results unless you're being intentionally broad (dictionary.com, short domains, ccTLDs, etc). And even when they do have more than 1,000 I doubt many people actually need/want to see all of them.

Again, the limit is not a hard limit, it's basically just how many results you can see with zero extra effort sorting and filtering. It's actually much higher than it appears. 10 is really 40 with a few extra seconds of work, or hundreds with a few extra minutes of work per search. 25 is really 100 with a few extra seconds or thousands with a few extra minutes.

The number doesn't even really matter, with enough permutations on sorts/filters you could theoretically still see the entire database on the free version. It would take ages though and careful planning. It's more about how much are you willing to pay to save time/hassle and get some extra perks/features, and we have options for everyone including people who aren't willing to pay anything.

Thanks for taking time and the detailed reply.

While I still disagree with some of your points, I understand that you must setup a business model according to your own business goals.

Still, I'd argue that your model is not logical, even from a business point of view. If you allow me, I want to suggest a different model with a different set of restrictions that may just solve both of our concerns. So, here goes nothing:

Don't put any restrictions whatsoever on the number of results per search.

Instead, put restrictions on search volume, i.e. the number of allowed searches per month. Higher accounts will have higher number of searches per month.

Then, if an account reaches the monthly allowance of search volume, the users should be able to buy extra search volumes with additional one time payment. This can be much costlier than monthly payments, just to attract regular users towards higher capped monthly subscriptions. However, these credits should not expire until used and non-monthly subscribers should be able to buy these one time credits as well.

There are many SAAS & Web Apps out there that use very similar model successfully. Putting restrictions on number of searches doesn't make any sense whatsoever. It needlessly reduces the quality of your App. If any competitor comes with the model I've suggested, I guarantee you, you'll lose business to them, while they'll still be more profitable compared to your model.

Besides, people with higher number of domains will definitely need higher number of monthly searches. But for a single search, nobody likes less number of results even after paying.

For example, say I pay you $10 next month, but I only needed to use your service for one particular search topic in the entire month, with say only 20 total searches. Why would I give you $10 if I only get 25 results and then have to do all the gymnastics with filtering to make it 100 results?

If I get 100 results with gymnastics anyway, why not give it to me at once and then put restrictions on how many searches I can perform!

Obviously someone with thousands of domains will need more number of searches than me. But no one is satisfied with less number of results.

Think about it. Who knows, perhaps you'll be able to come up with a far better pricing model with these suggestions. If not, then I wish you well, but I'll make my peace without your service.

All the best wishes
Fayaz.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Thanks for such an incredible product, @Michael, and thank you for responding so fully to concerns, questions and suggestions in this discussion thread.

While it is natural for users to always want to keep more for free, the restricted free option that exists will allow those who have a very specific need, such as did this exact term sell in other TLDs in last 5 years, to get that answer.

With typical users staying on site so long, it seems perfect for advertising revenue, but for reasons you cite that seems very challenging to get enough from consistently.

I think many have found subscriptions hard to sell to domainers. It did not surprise me when DNWE moved back to commission from their subscription model.

Anyway, I mainly wanted to thank you, for NameBio and for the responses in this thread.

-Bob

 

[Michael]

I think the fact that the lowest paid tier doesn’t even match what was free before and that you didn’t make any formal announcement is to just going to have the opposite result of what you want by alienating domainers.

I do understand the need to monetize what you have built but all this sorting talk— most of us don’t have all day to apply repeated sorts to maximize a tiny quota.

People pay for things that are fast, convenient, helpful and priced fairly for what is being given.

This change makes it harder to use and less appealing and more restrictive —which is a shame because it really is a great database you have accumulated.

I don’t think you are going to gain many on that bottom tier by reducing what limits were previously free. Maybe that doesn’t matter because you are focused more on the other tiers it seems.

Realistically the bottom tier should be a priority because more people can afford that one.

If people are abusing the system you should block them not punish everyone else.

Take it to the extreme to understand the problem. Let's say we never had to worry about scrapers in the first place, and the free version from before had unlimited results per search instead of 100 for guest and 150 for registered. How could I possibly structure the tiers in such a way that Collector wasn't getting less than used to be free? Obviously you can't, unless Collector was also unlimited. Even then people are still going to complain that now they have to pay for what used to be free.

I don't think it matters how it used to be and how it compares now, it's apples to oranges. Advertising is a wildly different model where you try to give away as much as possible to attract users. Yes, we used to give away a ton for free where even power users were satisfied. We can't do that any more. This is how I would have structured it if I was launching it from scratch, which I think is the only way to look at it. All that matters is that it is somewhat reasonable value for what you're currently getting, not compared to what you used to get, and I think it is (but that's open for debate).

I think the free version is still usable for casual. I think Collector is enough of a gain over free to be worth $60/year. I think Domainer is enough of a gain over Collector to be worth an extra $84/year. Etc.

 

[Michael]

Thanks for taking time and the detailed reply.

While I still disagree with some of your points, I understand that you must setup a business model according to your own business goals.

Still, I'd argue that your model is not logical, even from a business point of view. If you allow me, I want to suggest a different model with a different set of restrictions that may just solve both of our concerns. So, here goes nothing:

Don't put any restrictions whatsoever on the number of results per search.

Instead, put restrictions on search volume, i.e. the number of allowed searches per month. Higher accounts will have higher number of searches per month.

Then, if an account reaches the monthly allowance of search volume, the users should be able to buy extra search volumes with additional one time payment. This can be much costlier than monthly payments, just to attract regular users towards higher capped monthly subscriptions. However, these credits should not expire until used and non-monthly subscribers should be able to buy these one time credits as well.

There are many SAAS & Web Apps out there that use very similar model successfully. Putting restrictions on number of searches doesn't make any sense whatsoever. It needlessly reduces the quality of your App. If any competitor comes with the model I've suggested, I guarantee you, you'll lose business to them, while they'll still be more profitable compared to your model.

Besides, people with higher number of domains will definitely need higher number of monthly searches. But for a single search, nobody likes less number of results even after paying.

For example, say I pay you $10 next month, but I only needed to use your service for one particular search topic in the entire month, with say only 20 total searches. Why would I give you $10 if I only get 25 results and then have to do all the gymnastics with filtering to make it 100 results?

If I get 100 results with gymnastics anyway, why not give it to me at once and then put restrictions on how many searches I can perform!

Obviously someone with thousands of domains will need more number of searches than me. But no one is satisfied with less number of results.

Think about it. Who knows, perhaps you'll be able to come up with a far better pricing model with these suggestions. If not, then I wish you well, but I'll make my peace without your service.

All the best wishes
Fayaz.

I think this would be a difficult model because every action you take is a search, and it will be hard for people to follow. Change the sort, that's another search. Paginate, that's another search. Paginate back one, another search. Tweak one filter a little, another search. And then when people run out, if they don't want to pay they just aren't allowed to use the site any more. At least now if you don't want to pay you just have to face a little friction.

What do you think about getting rid of monthly memberships entirely and switching to Lifetime? Do people just not like recurring? Something like $99, $199, $799 for the three tiers and then you never pay again. Give credit for the membership dues people have already paid. Money-back guarantee since it's a bigger up-front ask. Tweak the limits a bit in favor of users, but nothing too drastic relative to current. Thoughts?

Thanks again for taking the time to provide feedback.

 

[Fayaz Ahmed]

I think this would be a difficult model because every action you take is a search, and it will be hard for people to follow. Change the sort, that's another search. Paginate, that's another search. Paginate back one, another search. Tweak one filter a little, another search. And then when people run out, if they don't want to pay they just aren't allowed to use the site any more. At least now if you don't want to pay you just have to face a little friction.

First of all, I understand that each tweak is a new search. However, you can improve that with better UI. So a search should be only counted when the UI needs to make a server request. And you can always show the remaining quota with each search.

Secondly, if an user runs out of search, you can always put that user to free tier for the remaining part of the month.

Besides, you already somewhat used to count the number of requests with free users with Ad. display. So it shouldn't be difficult to implement. But of course, this sort of model change must be made with careful considerations, keeping existing paid users in mind and taking their opinions.

What do you think about getting rid of monthly memberships entirely and switching to Lifetime? Do people just not like recurring? Something like $99, $199, $799 for the three tiers and then you never pay again. Give credit for the membership dues people have already paid. Money-back guarantee since it's a bigger up-front ask. Tweak the limits a bit in favor of users, but nothing too drastic relative to current. Thoughts?

Hmm, lifetime is not a bad idea, I already have too many subscriptions. All these add up to cause accounting headache.

However, if you keep the current model, I'd rather like an additional option to buy one time search volumes without restrictions to number of results - something comparable to monthly use, but that which will not expire. So that I can use it if I need it and when I need it. Revert me back to free users when my search volume is used up. I'll buy it again if I need it, and when I need it.

Thanks again for taking the time to provide feedback.

You're most welcome.

Regards,
Fayaz.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Imagine if GoDaddy's Domain Discount Club included subscriptions to all the most popular services. Or it could even work for NamePros, create a Platinum tier that includes a bunch of other subscriptions.

I think these are interesting ideas that I hope those in position will at least consider.

Before it was prat of GD DDC, did Domain Academy include reductions on certain domain-related services? Was NameBio one of those?

-Bob

 

[john888]

Why don't you add domain sales like Dan lower commission to your platform. Then both services would complement each other and be very valuable to us.

 

[kor]

I think this would be a difficult model because every action you take is a search, and it will be hard for people to follow. Change the sort, that's another search. Paginate, that's another search. Paginate back one, another search.

Either you have no idea about software development or you are a very sneaky manipulator!

 

[Michael]

Either you have no idea about software development or you are a very sneaky manipulator!

Or a third option that perhaps you didn't consider: it's true. Most usage-based models are implemented for things like API access that are programmatic, or for more clear events like doing a bulk search. You should see the way people spam-click the pagination back and forth, back and forth, bang a sort and look at it for a fraction of a second and then pick another column to sort on. Communicating that every little spasm they have is costing them would be a challenge. I'm not saying it's difficult to track, we log every search for the permalinks and anti-scraping measures, I'm saying I don't think it would be an ideal UX.

Unrelated, I increased the free limit to 25 for registered users and 10 for guest users. And increased Collector to 100, Domainer to 500, and Business to 2,500. Anyone who subscribed since yesterday has been bumped up. I know it's still not what people want, but hopefully that helps a little.

 

[kor]

Or a third option that perhaps you didn't consider: it's true.

if sessionKeyword == newSearchKeyword
    executeSearch() // without deducting credits
    
else
    createNewSession(newSearchKeyword)
    deductCredit()
    executeSearch()

 

[RozasMD]

Surviving as a small investor is becoming increasingly difficult, and these kinds of moves make it even harder. Let's make it harder for small investors to get info or resources. But who's your audience? Hey, @Michael, listen to this: our budgets are under heavy stress too.

Honestly, I started thinking about quitting about six months ago and probably should have closed for good three months ago. I'm probably three months away from starting to liquidate inventory massively and keeping only the most valuable 3-5% of my portfolio and not looking back.

Among all of the players you are going to get all of us, small investors, out of the game. Which Godaddy, HugeDomains and a few others will be more than happy to see happen. But if it seems difficult to you now, then you will discover how much fun it will be to try to get some of those huge players to sign up for your service, or the amount of advertising you will be able to try to sell when there are hardly no users with the capacity to invest in domaining to visit your website. That's your audience!

It still amazes me how sometimes one is not able to see the big picture instead of one's own little limited world.

The monopolistic players are winning the game and I can no longer see any way to stop them from sweeping the board. They have already won, in fact. And people like you, instead of trying to think of ways to do things differently to preserve the market, all you do is play along with their game and help them in their task of erasing the small players, who are your real audience.

Congratulations. A flawless strategy. Good luck with that.