GoDaddy, like a bunch of other giant non-monopoly companies such as banks, cable co's, phone companies, etc. steal from their customers with fraudulent nickle and dime charges. Happens all the time and it collectively costs consumers billions of dollars a year. I'm confused by what your objection is with a prominent blogger pointing this out. Should people just keep quiet and let other customers be defrauded?

What the GP means is that the domain registrar business is what Scott Adams calls a "confusopoly". Just like banks and telco companies, registrars know that they can't compete on price alone, so instead they convolute their products and offerings as much as possible just to make it look as differentiation, but the main purpose is to make sure that the customer has no way to objectively compare two companies.

As much as people are talking about GoDaddy and namecheap lately, no one managed to find a cheap registrar. Consumer opinion will always mention quality of support or the political stance of one company or another, but not one single soul managed to show me one registrar that has low prices for domain registration and renewal and SSL certificates. It's always one or the other.

I accept your point but reject the generalization. Not all registrars have embraced the prevailing approach you've identified - we've embraced exactly the opposite and work extremely hard to be as transparent and uncomplicated as possible.

I don't have a source handy, but there was an article circulating a few years ago describing the "evilness" of complication. The contention was that businesses that work hard to complicate situations for consumers are fundamentally "bad" and that the long-term win lies with simplifying complexity (the author made a distinction between complexity and complication - i.e. math is complex and best expressed in the least complicated manner.)

Anyways, I just wanted to point out that not everyone is working a variation of "the bait and switch" :)

/r

Namecheap's $10 for a domain, $10 for a renewal, and has single-domain Comodo certs for $8.95 (wildcard certs for $89, which isn't the cheapest but is below average).

I'm pretty sure that's a "cheap registrar".

And yet, if you go to GoDaddy, you can find domain names for $1.99, and transfers for $7.99.

With namecheap, they list as $10, but you can get the price even lower and use the code "SOPASucks"*

* Conditions apply. Conditions also apply.

All of these "conditions apply" kind of makes the point of my argument. For every $8.95 cert offer, there is another offer where you get a free cert by purchasing the domain name, or by transferring from some competitor, or by renewing some existing domain.

It is a true confusopoly. These schemes to extract more money from consumers may be slightly more or less scammy, but ALL domain registrars engage in these practices.

The sad part of it is that in the end, I don't know if I'd be better off being scammed into paying an extra $4/month for some service I'm not using, or being "socially conscious" and paying more to a company that does not pull these tricks, but that can only keep itself in business by charging higher prices.

I don't think you're using "cheap registrar" in the same way as I would think most people would. $10 is cheap. It's a lunch. If you are hunting for "the best deal," it is virtually guaranteed that you're eventually going to get burned at some point or another. Find a registrar who's not breaking the bank and who doesn't act like a dick to you, and stick with 'em. Your confusion seems self-inflicted.

(Namecheap actually does give you a free $8.95-level SSL cert with a domain registration.)

  1) Go to namecheap home-page.
  2) Try to find out how much it costs to *renew* a domain  after the first year.
  3) Realize that they are also not the masters of clarity and transparency.

No domain registrar is willing to compete on price (or premium services) alone. Not one of them is willing to put a simple price table on their front-page, and stick to it. There is always some coupon or bundled offer (can I get a discount if I don't want a SSL cert?) or volume discount, or reduction on the new ".yagni" TLD...

After all that, people just do what you say and "stick with someone who doesn't act like a dick to them". But that doesn't mean that the general confusion isn't there. Quite the contrary: it is working so well that you don't even notice it.

What I want is a domain registrar version of http://prgmr.com/xen/

> Should people just keep quiet and let other customers be defrauded?

No, they should talk the damage SOPA will do and companies that consumers should work with that currently provide positive experience.

Godaddy has had tremendous press over the last few days. All most people know about them now is that they sell domains. Can I buy domains somewhere else? Is there a company better than godaddy? Why is everyone talking about godaddy instead of this other company?

> steal from their customers with fraudulent nickle and dime charges

whoa now, that's quite the claim. I'm no GoDaddy fan, but come on.

If anything, that's generous.

People have already talked about the confusion the generate with pricing, upselling, and renewing. But the other day I got an email that said:

"You are the administrator on record for the following domains listed for sale at Go Daddy Auctions:"

And it listed a domain I've had for 15 years, one that isn't even listed with GoDaddy. I thought somebody had hijacked my domain.

Turns out it was all a scam. They were just trying to get me to use their assorted services. They said that "someone" had listed my domain there, but couldn't say who or when. When I asked to be taken off their mailing lists, they told me there was no list to be taken off of, but that yes, they might send me more bogus notices at any time. When I asked to speak to a supervisor, the guy flat-out refused. Eventually he called me names and hung up on me.

As far as I'm concerned, they're assholes and scammers. They compete on marketing and the ability to confuse the rubes. I can only hope that Jon Postel's vengeful spirit haunts them unto suicide.

This claim was made in the article, in case you didn't read it.