The Cost Of Doing Business Online Is Going Up And It Has Nothing To Do With Inflation

While it may not seem like a big price increase, .com domain registrations and renewals are going to go up 6.9 percent. That’s likely just the beginning thanks to the sweetheart deal the company that owns a monopoly on .com registrations, Verisign, received from the Trump administration in the form of a no-bid deal that also removed decades long regulations that capped how much they could increase prices year to year.

Moving forward, the company can increase costs at whatever rate they wish without fear of regulatory blowback. What’s worse, the no-bid deal automatically renews every six years so getting previous protections in place will be extremely challenging.

This is just one of numerous changes that made the operating digital platforms more expensive and less competitive. Fortunately for nonprofits, a similar effort that would have handed over registration of .org addresses to a private company that could raise rates as they please failed.

With all the inflation driven cost increases, it’s frustrating to see something motivated by nothing more than backroom deals making the cut deeper.

About Drew McManus

"I hear that every time you show up to work with an orchestra, people get fired." Those were the first words out of an executive's mouth after her board chair introduced us. That executive is now a dear colleague and friend but the day that consulting contract began with her orchestra, she was convinced I was a hatchet-man brought in by the board to clean house.

I understand where the trepidation comes from as a great deal of my consulting and technology provider work for arts organizations involves due diligence, separating fact from fiction, interpreting spin, as well as performance review and oversight. So yes, sometimes that work results in one or two individuals "aggressively embracing career change" but far more often than not, it reinforces and clarifies exactly what works and why.

In short, it doesn't matter if you know where all the bodies are buried if you can't keep your own clients out of the ground, and I'm fortunate enough to say that for more than 15 years, I've done exactly that for groups of all budget size from Qatar to Kathmandu.

For fun, I write a daily blog about the orchestra business, provide a platform for arts insiders to speak their mind, keep track of what people in this business get paid, help write a satirical cartoon about orchestra life, hack the arts, and love a good coffee drink.

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