100-Year Domain Renewals?

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Posted by timothy on Tuesday March 23, 2004 @12:10AM from the alien-invasion-insurance dept.

Ryosen writes "I received an email this morning from Network Solutions. Seems they are offering their current customers the ability to renew their domain names for 100 years. Is this is a realistic investment considering most companies don't last 100 years? Given that the Internet is a recent phenomenom, is it realistic to expect it to be the same in 100 years? Will Verisign be around that long? Does this make sense?"

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I remember something similar to it by lingqi · 2004-03-23 00:17 · Score: 5, Interesting

Just before the Nationalists fled mainland china to Taiwan, they pre-charged everyone something like 50-years worth of taxes.

Let's just say that for everybody that paid, it wasn't a very good investment.

(That said, it's not that people had a choice in the matter or anything)

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My life in the land of the rising sun.
Re:Yeah, it makes sense... by bitmason · 2004-03-23 00:20 · Score: 5, Interesting

I would be very surprised if Network Solutions can report this as lump-sum revenue in the quarter received. Like any subscription, I would assume that it has to be spread out over the length of the registration. If so, they're actually potentially giving up some nearer-term revenue for this (because there's a discount involved)--even though they're getting cash in hand.
Family Names by sandypants · 2004-03-23 00:23 · Score: 5, Interesting

For those of us with Family names as domain names, holding that domain name for 100 years.. while debatably evil.. does become a viable use. It can be passed on from generation to generation. A legacy kinda thing.

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"If you are falling off of a mountain, You may as well try to fly." -- Sheridans Father
Well you could make a great deal, look at Guinness by damgx · 2004-03-23 00:24 · Score: 5, Interesting

In 1759 Arthur Guinness, rather speculatively, took over a deserted brewery at Dublin's St James's Gate, moreover he leased it for 9,000 years at a rent of 45 per annum - obviously intending on staying awhile.

Source:

I guess he made a great deal don't you?

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I only read slash. for the articles...
Re:Um...no by Loconut1389 · 2004-03-23 03:35 · Score: 5, Interesting

This is something I've pondered often. I think the DNS model will only persist as long as the impression that a website must be a .com does. This is fading, but I remember a long time ago when people thought there was a mistake if there was no www. on the front or it wasn't a .com.. Granted, the tech public knew better, but the average joe had no idea. (im talking back when = 6), eventually it will just make more sense to have sort of a distant cousin to a search engine type DNS system. Or maybe websites will be more or less a sentence (company slogan) or word pair (company name)? Who knows, but I agree, machine naming is going to change drasticly someday.

Heck, what if there was enough IP space such that the ASCII codes for the letters in your site name somehow made up the actual IP. That would eliminate the need for a DNS system altogether, but would waste a lot of IP space as we think about it in our current paradigm of fixed ip lengths with groupings etc etc. Perhaps future systems will not need fixed length, perhaps not. Who knows.