I'll tell my TLD story. I was following .family for a long time, since my current "primary domain" is horrible and hard to say. <family name>.family sounded pretty awesome.
There was that whole pre-registration BS but it is so convoluted and expensive I just waited till it went live. It did, and when I checked on my last name, it was set at $1200/year for a normally $30/year domain. This was when I was introduced to the idea of reserved domains in this new TLD system.
So I emailed them and put forth my argument, that this TLD in particular is a bit unfair, considering I don't control what name I'm born with. I didn't think it would have any impact, because $$$.
One day I got an email and they offered me to buy it for a one-time price of $1200 and then the renewal would be set at $30. I said no. There are so many TLDs now that it's easy to get a common-word, easy-to-say one.
There was that whole pre-registration BS but it is so convoluted and expensive I just waited till it went live. It did, and when I checked on my last name, it was set at $1200/year for a normally $30/year domain. This was when I was introduced to the idea of reserved domains in this new TLD system.
So I emailed them and put forth my argument, that this TLD in particular is a bit unfair, considering I don't control what name I'm born with. I didn't think it would have any impact, because $$$.
One day I got an email and they offered me to buy it for a one-time price of $1200 and then the renewal would be set at $30. I said no. There are so many TLDs now that it's easy to get a common-word, easy-to-say one.