I'm a hobbyist with a few domain names (under 10 total); of those, the majority are in "use" (that is, there is something of mine they resolve to - not to a blank page or a "for sale" page or anything like that). But a couple or so have no content behind them (and honestly, some day I'll probably let them go back to the wild).
Should I have to pay the amounts you list for something that is a hobby? What about others with hobby domains and sites? Should they have to pay such extreme amounts just to keep their hobby site going?
There are people out there who run sites "just because" - giving away information and content for free, like the web used to be - like it was meant to be, not this almost seeming abomination we have today, built on ephemerous "likes" and other useless metrics.
Your solution would do nothing but turn the web even further to corporate control, and leave hobby sites to only the well heeled, or to those who can scrape by (perhaps NPR fund-drive style). The majority would simply fold up shop, never to be seen again.
I get it - I don't like true squatters any more than the next person; that is, those who sit on a domain hoping to make a buck off of some words. I have no problem with a business establishing a valuable domain based on their name and reputation. I don't like those who sit on domain names that sound or seem like a similar company's name, and try to bank of that (or worse).
But I think your solution of "raising rates" - at least unilaterally - isn't the answer, unless we want a worse web experience than we already have today.
Should I have to pay the amounts you list for something that is a hobby? What about others with hobby domains and sites? Should they have to pay such extreme amounts just to keep their hobby site going?
There are people out there who run sites "just because" - giving away information and content for free, like the web used to be - like it was meant to be, not this almost seeming abomination we have today, built on ephemerous "likes" and other useless metrics.
Your solution would do nothing but turn the web even further to corporate control, and leave hobby sites to only the well heeled, or to those who can scrape by (perhaps NPR fund-drive style). The majority would simply fold up shop, never to be seen again.
I get it - I don't like true squatters any more than the next person; that is, those who sit on a domain hoping to make a buck off of some words. I have no problem with a business establishing a valuable domain based on their name and reputation. I don't like those who sit on domain names that sound or seem like a similar company's name, and try to bank of that (or worse).
But I think your solution of "raising rates" - at least unilaterally - isn't the answer, unless we want a worse web experience than we already have today.