Search Google for $0.50 domains and you can get .com/org/net domains for a $0.50USD for the first year from companies like Register or Network Solutions.
The downside is you have to be very careful when you sign up as to not forget to remove the $100 worth of junk they throw in your shopping cart, but a few months after you register you can then transfer your domain to another registrar so you don't have to renew at their ridiculous $30-$40 price tag.
The upside is you don't have to spam your Twitter followers.
Only valid for 24 hours, at $10 a piece i'm sure theres not a whole lot of people waiting to register names... so this is probably going to cause a bunch of people to register names they don't care about :(
A domain name is much more than storing an entry in a database. The root name servers are not cheap to operate. Domain names can also have glue records which mean more records in the root name server.
Also the more expensive a domain name is, the less spammy domains you see. If domains were $1 all the time, there would hardly be any domains left since everyone would register anything they can think of. Adding a price point reduces the number of unused domains.
In addition to your hardware/IT costs you have:
-ICANN's fees to get started
-ICANN's annual fees
-ICANN's fee per registration
-ICANN's variable fees (based on their expenses)
Then, you have to pay the "owner" of each TLD to be able to register .com, .me, .io, etc. It costs, for example, over $7.00 to Verisign each time Namecheap registers a .com unless they've arranged some other pricing. The bottom line is the $.98 promotion is quite a loss leader.
Some providers make often 1$ .com or .org without asking you spamming Twitter followers... They may be estimate that a tweet has a ROI of 5$. This is not the case, because influencers will not retweet to avoid paying 5$. My twitter followers worth better content.
So why did I get downvoted? Are people honestly comfortable with companies strong-arming them into crowd-sourced social media advertising? I was under the impression from numerous posts on this website this is exactly the demographic that is repulsed by this type of activity.
I also have a Namecheap account. I am a happy customer. But this, in conjunction with their attempt at FB/Twitter anti-CISPA campaigned, left a bitter taste in my mouth.
They are purchasing a social media campaign by paying each twitter re-tweeter $(DOMAIN_PRICE_FOR_DOT_COM - 0.98), out of which of them will not claim their payment.
And I am simply recommending a good service, the one I use and like, to my followers. Without being strong-armed.
A nice deal, but it's not clear if this is only for those that retweet, or everyone. Or whether it's for a year or per year (the latter would be quite something).
If only there were decent .com's and .net's still left ;-)
It read to me like those were rules for the retweet to qualify (and the follow @namecheap seems like an ask rather than a requirement, possibly not allowed to require this by Twitter TOS).
Ugh, talk about bad timing...
I just spent the last week moving all of my domains from Godaddy to Name cheap. I even looked for a coupon before I did it.
They are not the only bullshit-free service but are actually costlier than, at least by $ 4-5, all other bullshit-free competitors.
my current registrar doesn't spam me, doesn't pester me to buy their XYZSD and never adds anything else in the cart and their interface is fairly clean and costs almost 1/2 for the .com.
Namecheap did $1 transfers for Black Friday, which is as good as a renewal if you're already with someone else. Exploiting these offers can save you big if you're like me and have dozens of domains.
That said, I wouldn't transfer my most important domains away from NearlyFreeSpeech.net to save a lowsy $6-7.
One of my favorite hacks: DreamHost sold 1 year of domain + hosting for $60, and you could use coupons to get it down to $10. Then you could cancel everything and use the "redeemed" $60 to buy a domain for six years.
The downside is you have to be very careful when you sign up as to not forget to remove the $100 worth of junk they throw in your shopping cart, but a few months after you register you can then transfer your domain to another registrar so you don't have to renew at their ridiculous $30-$40 price tag.
The upside is you don't have to spam your Twitter followers.