Exactly 12 months + 30 days ago, auDA (au Domain Administration) stated:
From 24th March, Australians who held priority with their existing domain name (.com.au .net.au .id.au .gov.au) were able to purchase their matching Direct .au
Well, guess what!
If you add one year and 30 days to that date, you get to the very start of the moment where people who hate their Direct .au domain name, let them drop. This means, they don’t find value in their Direct .au domain name and probably heavily regret buying it it in the first place.
Today, the very first batch of Direct .au domain names that can drop, are dropping.
3681 Direct .au domains drop today. On day one.
I believe this is the biggest amount of Australian domain names dropping in a single day, on record?
I’ve not heard of a single Direct .au sale over $6000 and not one medium to large company has rebranded or started using Direct .au
Is this the very start of the Direct .au dominos falling?
At the time I was devastated missing out on some choice .au domains. But now a year later I’m not feeling so upset.
Many said these new au domains are merely a money grab for registrars. This would seem to confirm they were right.
People bought their matching domain to protect their brand (but never intended to use it) and Domainers who bought these hoping to cash in on the next gold rush are now feeling compelled to pay ongoing fees in order to hold stock in something they may not be able to sell for many years.
Good investment? Time will tell. But now 12 months in, my gut feeling is that the income from the 2% (if you’re lucky) that sell will barely pay the holding cost of 98%+ of those domains that don’t sell.