Ask HN: What do your non-tech friends think about custom TLDs?

7 points by rwol ↗ HN

7 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 23.5 ms ] thread
Hard to say for sure, but when I've told people to go to sites with new TLDs, they ask if '.com' is at the end, and seem skeptical when I assure them I gave them a full domain.
Interesting to hear. Even as a technical person I'm often a bit taken aback when a site's primary domain is a non-[.com, .org, .net, .gov, .io, .country, or .city]. For $0.88 at a certain registrar I could pick up a bunch for side projects, but even at that price I'm wondering if it's worth it.
I generally have to prefix my urls with www. just to ensure people realize they are domains: www.something.xyz. I'm also interested in this "certain registrar", if you wouldn't mind.
That's a good tip about prefixing with www. And sure thing. It's https://www.namecheap.com/. You even get free WhoisGuard.
One thing to note is that "premium" names for those 88 cent domains are not 88 cents. I forgot what I searched but it was one of the 88 cent TLDs and it ended up being $32/yr (at least) and some were even higher.
Yeah I didn't understand if that was namecheap bumping the price up or a squatter trying to sell it. You may have to get a bit creative to find some good deals.
I imagine .co would be the hardest for non-tech people since they are used to .com`