Prior to the increase of the premium cost name traders sniped virtually every expiring ENS name directly interacting with the contracts giving regular users no chance at all of getting the ENS names they wanted (even when they were willing to pay the then maximum premium)
As a support mod I personally answered tons of questions from real users about it and got a sense of their frustration. Those questions went away after the premium price increase was implemented: [EP5] [Executable] Set the temporary premium start price to $100,000
It’s the same with registration periods, “Help I just bought a name and it’s expired” is now a common question. If it wasn’t for the support tickets I receive from users falling prey to these abnormal practices of name traders I wouldn’t care much about this.
So yes, this affects real users.
Makoto’s recent dashboard reveals this as well, showing that the more names a wallet holds, the shorter their registration duration is.
