This feels like outright theft. Given that you can’t transfer the domain away (correct?), I think you could argue that it is.
Theft of what? You never really 'owned' a domain there in the first place since Google outright owns the TLD and can increase / decrease prices at any time.
It always has been 'rented', meaning you never truly owned it.
It's a bad thing for Google to do, but let's not act like it's illegal.
The OG model here is one of decentralization. In this model, the registrar (Google) isn't the owner of the domain. They're just a business that deals with the annoying details around registering a domain on your behalf, and you pay them a small fee to do so. Once again, the registrar can't sell or rent you anything, because they don't own anything to sell you. The registrar only sells the service of acting on your behalf.
Premium domains were originally seen as a shitty thing to do, because it put the domain registrars in the business of acting against their customers. Instead of registering a domain on behalf of their customers, they instead would buy the domains for themself, so they could then sell them at huge markup to their customers. Some registrars then took things further and pre-register domains their customers searched for, even if they never had any interest in buying the domain originally. Extra shitty.
The current .dev (or similar) situation once again feels really dirty to people thinking of the web under this traditional mental model. Domains aren't supposed to be just GIVEN to a single company to then charge whatever price they want. The web is supposed to be decentralized, and instead...we're here.
I mean, yes, sure. That's technically how it works, but in practice I'm not sure that really matter. What happens to your domain if your Google account gets banned? Does your domain disappear? Does Google let you transfer it out?
This isn't some hypothetical, unrealistic utopia - this is *how the web worked*. We gave that away by giving registrars sole control over tlds.
It's easy to say 'well nobody really cares about .dev domains anyway' - but why will it just be .dev moving forward? Is it so hard to imagine a world where .com is no longer the default, and companies/individuals have to pay exorbitant monopoly prices to some gatekeeper?
I've never been an activist in this regard. It just feels really shitty to see something that used to belong to us all, everyone, equally, get divvied up and sold off.
.com is not a requirement. Companies use non-standard TLDs everywhere. .com is still the default, but you would do just fine with other TLDs, and if some gatekeeper arrived this would only strengthen the argument as businesses would flock to lesser known TLDs.
Of all of the things I worry about regarding computing, the internet, etc., domains does not make the list.
Registrars are domain *resellers* who sell your domain by buying it from the *registry* for you. There is only one Registry per TLD.
That's why it was such a big deal when .net and .org were looking to change hands.
p.s. and no, I sure wouldn’t like my landlord to 70x my rent. Like from say 1,000/mo to 70,000/mo ? That’s like totally cool then right? How about let’s act like it _should_ be illegal, and then make it so.
Oh come on, let's not kid ourselves here. There are _plenty_ of other TLDs to choose from. Google owns .dev, they can do what they want with it. The debate of whether a company should own a TLD like Google does is another question entirely.
> p.s. and no, I sure wouldn’t like my landlord to 70x my rent. Like from say 1,000/mo to 70,000/mo ? That’s like totally cool then right?
No it's not cool; that's totally exploitative. But my landlord sure could do that if they wanted to because they own the building. If my landlord thinks someone will pay $70,000/mo for my unit why shouldn't they be allowed to see that profit?
Google definitely should not be treating their customers like this, especially considering that they're burning bridges for such little income.
And yes, it's a monopoly.
ICANN designates what TLDs are valid
Registries own individual TLDs fully
Registrars resell domains on those TLDs that registries own.Yeah, this is kinda my point. Google (probably; I haven't read the agreement) has no obligation to keep the renewal price the same. I'm not saying they should be doing this (especially considering they're a trillion dollar company), but Google seems well within their right to do it.
This is the same with housing where it is not uncommon to have occasional raises in rent that loosely trails inflation.
Does Disney have a monopoly on superheroes because they own Marvel? Google owns .dev. There are plenty of other TLDs to choose from.
The analogy is, of course, not the point here.
In any case, it appears the whole OP was either a lie or at the least misleading. Apparently the guy paid $850 to begin with, not $12.