Fair, but this is an initial strategy to bootstrap a naming systemâŚ
With ENS it should have settled by now.
Decreasing would NOT lead to another comparable run of âspeculatively driven pplâ who think , âyea 640$ down to 500$/400$ the time is nowâ
The primary purpose of registration fees is as an incentive mechanism to prevent the namespace becoming overwhelmed with speculatively registered names.
Your purpose cannot be achieved by simply raising registration fees. As you can see, good digits and words domains have already been hoarded by speculators, and the concentration of wealth is increasing.
What we should recognize is that the high registration fees for 3L/4L domain names are causing problems by preventing users from using them and leading to wastage of resources.
If renewal prices were lower, prices to acquire names on secondary would be higher and those names would be even less available to users. No resources are âwastedâ; they go to the DAO that maintains and improves ENS, rather than into the hands of speculators.
Could you clarify how this statement does not contradict itself because you are making a speculative statement about an assumed reason for purchase of the name?
In a sense, the number of registrations decreasing isnât always a bad thing. I wouldnât expect names to just continually be registered over and over for the sake of obtaining a data point. Speculation of intended name use is hard to measure with out launching a quantitative research campaign that is both comprehensive and accurate.
Personally I do not see a shift in market activity if the prices were to move +/- 50%. I think overtime as ENS DAO continues to provide a mechanism for the ecosystem and retroactive public goods funding people will slowly let them go back into the market leaving them available.
Just as @nick said and IMO, Leaving the registration fees alone is the best option. Itâs not so unaffordable that it would create disinterest completely. At the same time its not so cheap that it might influence ideas of a lower quality product. Fees create a pool of funds as a reward and incentive to build a great product on ENS.
If everyone thought there project doesnât have a chance at winning over voter interest through grants, they wouldnât submit. Instead the sentiment is quite the opposite, that is obvious with the continually increasing number of projects submitted. Usability and purpose has to be built and imagination is abundant. People want to use an in-house naming mechanism.
ENS DAO is also an organization, for funding initiatives in multiple places. That being said, we have to be careful about maintaining a balance between project funding, sustainability of the DAO and contributors, ENS Labs, market changes as well as internal support and innovation. Changing registration prices has a great deal of sensitivity and could dynamically affect every resource that ENS supports and relies on. I think that if any pricing should occur, it would be best until waiting for a larger cushion of support from the endaoment plans.
Me: How do you know?
You: I made it up.
That kind of reply you gave me earlier 
It could be as you say, but it could be cheaper. The market will decide, and that is the only fair way.
In any case, I as an end-user would be happy to pay letâs say $2000 or $5,000 for a 3char if I would new that my yearly renewal will be no higher than $50. At the current pricing, no way I will choose a 3char to use it for years.
As I mentioned many times, the current price is NOT GOOD as everyone sees that the registered 3/4-chars are rapidly dropping. It doesnât require to be Einstein to conclude what is the reason.
Well, if there are not many renewals at this price and the registered names are dropping, DAO is not making much money out of those names. By $50/y and $20/y, DAO would be receiving a guaranteed few million from renewals of 3/4-chars and would still be getting frequent premiums as some great domains will always be dropping (someone forgot them, someone passed away etc.).
By 01.01.2024., it would actually get a lot of money as we would see a bull run on short names, and per my suggestion, the pricing would stay unchanged until 01.01.2024. (if I am not right, nothing will be changed).
It is very important that the competition is emerging. We just look and will become âone of manyâ, unless we act now and grab the crown. We should boost the market, interest and mainstream articles, and the best way would be to have another extremely liquid category, what a 3L would definitely be (only with normal renewal pricing).
I wanted to say that the current market of ENS is the market of speculators. If there were no speculators, we would not be discussing now at this forum as nobody would care about ENS. Speculators gave life to ENS.
No matter if you like speculators or not, they are everywhere, on every market, and often are good for the market, promotion etc.
Great, then it will stay just as it is now and you who are not backing my suggestion will be satisfied and I will have to shut up.
My suggestions again:
Itâs ridiculous pricing, without any doubt. And if you donât believe me, the market told you the same.
There is an active discussion of the second airdrop. Why that? That is a pure waste of funds at this moment. With my suggestion, the market would get more domains, more volume, more end-users and DAO would be finally getting sustainable fees from 3/4-chars.
I could only repeat myself now. In my previous posts I explained my reasoning.
We all love ENS. I would just like to see my suggestion executed, and if I am not right, nothing will be changed and I will be quiet.
No, itâs a well established economic principle. Itâs also intuitively obvious: people will pay more for a name that costs them $50 a year than they will for a name that costs $640 a year, because they will pay less in fees over the duration they expect to hold it.
Both the increased price on secondary and the reduced availability as more names are registered speculatively for resale run counter to ENSâs goals of making names widely available to end users.
Iâve already pointed out that maximum income is not the DAOâs goal. But even if it were, your proposal would reduce income on 3- character names. With 16,353 names registered at $640/yr, that would bring in revenue of ~$10.5M/y. Bringing in equivalent revenue at $50/name would require over 200k 3 character names, and there are only 36^3 = 46,656 alphanumeric names.
âLiquidityâ is not a meaningful way to measure a name service, unless you treat names as interchangeable - something a speculator does, but end users generally do not do.
If you want to argue that we should cater to speculators rather than users, you will have to start by proposing an amendment to the constitution.
For the same reason there is an active discussion here: someone got it into their head that it was a good idea to propose.
While we have now: people donât pay anything for a name that cost them $640/y. There are some exceptions, but the number of registered short names is rapidly dropping, that is a fact.
By lowering the renewal, yes, short names would be more interesting to speculators, but would also become interesting to end-users.
I donât understand why you canât accept the fact the market and the end-users clearly showed that they are not interested in the names with such a high renewal pricing.
What DAO is currently doing is only ripping off those few who registered a short name (and who will drop it before the renewal unless it is one of a few super premium names) and preventing end-user to use short names.
OK, I guess you have the exact info on how many short names are currently registered. You say 16,353. If you check how many were registered in August 2022, I am sure you will see a much larger number. If you check the number in December, it should be higher than today. If you check the number in January, it should be lower than in December. You get the point. Itâs clear why and itâs clear what to expect for February and March. How can you be claiming DAO is protecting end-users when it is obvious you are discouraging them from using short ENS names by this renewal pricing?
Sorry, but I donât see any logic in keeping the current pricing at this level except if DAO is calculating and wants to extract maximum profit. However, that is fine and legit.
I may be wrong, but I think you are ignoring my suggestion only because you think DAO will make less money. I didnât read any true argument which would make me think otherwise.
No problem, I understand DAO needs funds and thatâs perfectly legit.
There are more than 46656 3chars. Dont know exactly, but with emojis and special characters the total number is larger.
Those $10M DAO is currently making from 3chars are on their way to becoming a maximum of $7M-$8M very soon. I guess you are well aware of that. By my suggestion, I am sure all 3Ls would be registered (17576 combinations) and many other 3chars. Letâs say the total number would be only about 20000 (but could easily be more). That would be about $1M for DAO, but this time SUSTAINABLE.
With the current pricing until 01.01.2024., the registration of currently available 3Ls and some other 3chars would bring DAO at least about $6-$7M. That means in the period of 1 year DAO would make the same or more than it will make this way. If I am not right, nothing will be changed as per my suggestion, the condition needed for renewal price cut will not be fulfilled.
What would also happen? A lot of additional liquidity to the market. End-users would show up and register/buy their 3char. There would be more liquidity, more sales and more high sales. That would attract mainstream media. Their writing about ENS would be priceless marketing!
If you are concerned about only $1M from 3chars instead of $7M-$8M per year (probably even less), ok, you can raise the price of 5chars to $7 or $8. With lets say only 2,000,000 registered 5chars that would bring an additional $4,000,000-$6,000,000. With those $1M from 3chars, that would be the same as now, and we would have an active domain space, with real end-users in the 3chars space, which is often the foundation of every successful and healthy domain space.
DAO revenue would stay similar, but ENS would become more popular and would be more in the mainstream news. Thatâs priceless and we need exactly that now as the competition is not sleeping as I mentioned already. If we get used people to ENS now, they will not be willing to switch later. If we will wait, many of them will go elsewhere. That has nothing to do with short names, it is about popularity, which we may lose by the influence of competition.
If you would argue that 5chars should not be $7-$8âŚwho cares while we have to charge the gas fee too. Gas prices for registration/renewal of 5chars vary from $5-$20 mostly and nobody cares. I donât think anybody would care about $1 or $2 more in base registration/renewal price. However, if anybody would care, that would be speculators, and that doesnât bother you as I believe. An end-user who wants one 5chars for his Web3 identity would most certainly not care about paying $1 or $2 more per year, but would also be able to choose his dream short name which he currently refuse to hold (proven).
End-users donât want short names at $640 and $160 per year and that is clear and proven.
No, I explained my reasoning.
Yes, but I get the impression you and DAO will do the second airdrop. I donât agree, but ok. I understand people want free money and thatâs the main idea behind that proposal. It is not good either for ENS token price neither for ENS voting, but ok.
The fact that is bothering me is that you are much more open to the second airdrop idea than to my suggestion, which would prove I am right before 01.01.2024., or would prove I am not right and nothing will be changed.
A great solution might be for you and @rendehero to simply focus your activities on 5+ letter names. They have a super low carry cost of 5$ per year. You agreed above that price point doesnât need to be lowered further. You can then leave the more scarce 3L/4L for others that see their value, whether thatâs now or some other time in the future.
As for the general concern that 3L/4L registrations are declining, as Nick stated this is not an area of focus for ENS right now. The arguments you make misunderstand the mission of ENS.
Which bring me to this:
This is not a trivial item you can simply say âNoâ to. Smart Contracts and governance procedures take priority over any community suggestions. The constitution even more so. Dismissing it leaves you with a very flawed argument.
i hold more 5+ch domains than the âscarceâ 3L 4L , and as an late party joiner, read the conversation above to understand what we said earlier.
Just reading through nickâs comments doesnât work here.
While you shouldâve caught the comment that the decline in 3ch domains, (NOT 3L or 4Lâs you mentioned (3L 4L â 3ch 4ch domains , 3ch means 3 codepoints not 3 Letter domains, 3 codepoints are not only Letters)) is a clear sign of overpricing.
Are we still in the bootstrap phase or do i miss something here ?
User friendly is NOT high prices , high prices ARE a barrier of usage.
640$ per year , let that sink in.
Again , ik i mentioned this âfriendâ a lot , but heâs simply my point of view now.
He didnât decide to get a 3L or even 4L domain since it costs 640$ / 160$ per year.
Now imagine someone that would like to have 
$:earth_americas:.eth , itâs absurd.
Heâd probably laugh tf out if you try explain an newcomer to crypto that he has to pay an x5 amount of an Netflix Subscription.
Why you donât react on some of my suggestions ?:
âŚ
by simply tracking registrations and NOT radically decreasing renewal costs to 50$
There is no âprofitingâ.
It doesnât even make sense to have a continuously increasing number of registrations in categories that are limited in number in nature with demand.
Hypothetically if there are 10 names available:
5 of them get registered for five years
2 get registered for three years
3 get registered for one year.
yes registrations will be down this quarterâŚand after that and after thatâŚ
then it is equivocally as difficult to change the prices as it is to measure why.
@rendehero : how many ENS names do you have? just curiousâŚ
I believe I really explained enough in the tons of my previous posts 
Having names taken, but on the market is freeing the names. Having them available, but with too high a carry cost, means blocking them and preventing end-users to use them.
If the owner is asking too much on the market, he will not sell and will eventually lower the price so the domain will be purchased and used. Now DAO is holding too high a renewal price, but it is not lowering it and the number of registered short names is rapidly dropping. End-users are prevented from using them. The only place to determine the price should be the market.
Whoever owns more than 1, or ok, letâs say 3-5 ENS names, is speculating. So abusing speculators for anything by those who are speculating themselves might not be fair
If that was a honest statement, then:
If I am not wrong, you will see clear evidence. If am wrong, no problem, nothing will be changed. Itâs really very simple unless the evidence is actually not something that is really wanted here.
Free the short names!
Of course it makes sense.
Ppl who are ready to let 3/4ch domains expire are indicators that these are too expensive.
Especially if there is more that 50% decline in a specific character set.
Did you see any comparable decline in the 4 or 5+ ch sets ?
3ch domains rarely getting registered for more than 2 years.
Reducing renewal cost would probably lead to an registration phase of more than 2 years so some users may think about to get an 3ch or 4ch domain.
âŚIâm holding around 500 names @accessor.eth
What else should be said? The 3Ls, a golden category, is witnessing significant drops. How on Earth does the DAO not realize the problem is pricing and that it is the one who is preventing people to use short names? That is against the DAOs official narrative.
Free the short names!
3 character names are not rare in any way
There are billions and billions of combinations for a 3 character names,
you only need to look here are Raffys character viewer to see:
https://adraffy.github.io/ens-normalize.js/test/chars.html
Just alone there are 1359 emojis that are 1 character length:
https://adraffy.github.io/ens-normalize.js/test/emoji.html
so for a 3-character name is it 1359x1359x1359 = 2,509,911,279 aka 2.5billion
If you look at the first link you can see all the symbols and different languages that can be used, some can only be used with the same language
When you see just how many combinations then you can see why people think that the yearly rego cost should be reduced, I understand it, but it is what it is, we have no choice, it is the decision of the DAO, these are the costs of ownership, Iâm sure it could be put to a vote, but in the end the DAO decides, though it may take time
I would understand a reduction in cost for 3 character names, but, not the ones made up of 0-9 & A-Z as these are deemed the premium names and deserve the the premium price
I do find it interesting though that âENS needs the yearly rego fees to surviveâ when ENS now has an Endownment Fund to fund development regardless of overall economic conditions
There is no end to discussion about what the right number is. In a market, one side will always find something too cheap or expensive. The only long term solution is a market pricing mechanism like auction. However this is quite complicated and will likely deter new users.
For the current state of prices, $640 and $610 is not a market now. These are magic numbers decided by ENS DAO/Labs. There is nothing wrong as prices always need a starting point.
If the goal is to maximise usage and usefulness of ENS, then letâs look at stats
Total supply of ânormalâ names for 3 characters (A-Z, 0-9) = 17,575 + 1000 = 18,575
Stats for 1st March 2023: 5,954 available. Meaning 32% available now. Is this the goldilocks number?
My question to ENS DAO, what target % will you try to hit to reflect an accurate pricing for short names?
When availability is 80% available, will fee drop?
When availability is 20% available, will fee increase?
Maybe a quarterly price revision based on these statistics might help?
the high price as incentive mechanism to prevent hoarding during initial stages has been incredibly successful for its intended purpose, but no longer serves that purpose and now simply hinders end-user adoption
3-4char prices should be gradually reduced until peak adoption has occurred, 20% reduction every 6-12 months sounds reasonable. 5char can be increased if the dao is worried about revenue loss(personally i dont think it will ever be an issue, and $5 seems fine)
increase in end-users is highly correlated with transactional volume on secondary markets. to suggest the dao doesnât benefit from secondary sales is completely absurd when we observe the events that transpired over the last 18 months.
just my 2c 
Sounds good too, but I would prefer my suggestion as by executing it the DAO would be getting full price by 01/01/2024. My expectation is that only an official announcement now about the renewal price cut later should be enough to boost everything. If I am wrong, per my suggestion, nothing would be changed after 01/01/2024
Iâm not understanding these positions at all.
Reduce renewal fees to increase adoption.
Okay, so how would reducing pricing increase adoption, when
the price is the same for anyone (including hoarders/flippers/squaters/speculators/whateveryouwanttocallit)
There are virtually infinite names that can be registered
1, cont: Any domain can be extended by any wallet at any time. It doesnât have to expire first. If the renewal fee was lowered, what would prevent current holders from just extending theirs at the new, lower price? Wouldnât lowering the price just make it cheaper for them to do that?
2, cont: There are unlimited names available to register, and the hype around âscarcityâ is a shared fiction within a really niche, insular community, and doesnât apply to anyone outside of those.
Adoption means people using ENS. Not even factoring in that very soon there will also be subdomains, which can essentially be issued for free⌠So what adoption would even be effected by changing prices? Adoption of <5 character domain names? How does that specific adoption matter at all in the larger picture of people using ENS?
I donât understand any of this.
This is really hard to quantify. We can only look at the historical data. I guess this is the crux of the discussion here? There is no way to know what people are willing to pay without them first paying that amount. So far, I havenât seen any compelling evidence or argument that changing the prices would do anything, good or bad, for adoption.
Itâs already been stated several times that the fees arenât to generate income, and yet the amount of revenue coming in keeps being referenced over and over, as if it is some significant concern or cause for worry.
Truly Iâm just trying to find any kind of logic or evidence to justify claims and positions made in this thread.
My stand of X% being registered is not profit driven. It is usage driven. To be used, it has to be registered. Nick has previously stated that he wants âmostly registeredâ. I agree on this too. The question is what is the target. Itâs kinda of like how the Fed has a 2% inflation target and interest rates are adjusted to try to get to that amount.
Look at these 2 scenarios,
I have written a thread on twitter about why I think reducing fees is the best thing to do.
please check it out: https://twitter.com/_etheth/status/1631152856928485378
Summary:
I have seen, based on stats from dune, that:
Brantly and Nick, in late 2021, said that the fees are put into place in order to âto prevent the namespace [from] becoming overwhelmed with speculatively registered namesâ and to âprevent all the desirable names [from] being registered by speculators immediately.â
There is clear contradiction between the stats and the reasoning behind the fees:
Despite the obviously high fees, speculators/squatters still accounted for most of the revenue and own most of the âdesirableâ names.
With this in mind, I think a fee reduction is the smart thing to do: minimum 50%. In the thread, I said âideally 75%.â However, I could see why 50% reduction could be better or maybe a little lower at $240 and $60.
Why I think this change would be a net positive?
Finally, I donât think this will be bad for revenue short term and long term:
cheaper fees â more accessible â more short length registrations
