WordPress said in a blog post that this 100-year plan is ideal for families to preserve their history on the internet and for founders to document their company’s journey. While the promise of keeping digital assets for a century sounds promising, it comes at the cost of a $38,000 one-time payment.
Here are what you get in exchange for a 100 year plan:
A 100-year domain registration that comes with managed hosting and 24/7 support for US$ 38,000. It will also come with these features:
- Domain security for 100 years
- Multiple backups
- Top-notch managed WP hosting
- Unlimited bandwidth
What happens to the domains if the company decides to shut down the program for some reason?
Prior to now, domain name registration periods are capped at 10 years. It was somewhat reasonable as ten years can be viewed to be realistic and not seen as something way much into the feature.
Come to think of it, how many people live over a century in today’s world? Let’s say you owned your first website at age 13, paying for a 100 years will be a complete ripoff because the possibility of living over a hundred years to exhaust your 100 year subscription isn’t going to be possible.
That is equally not to say that there aren’t companies who have out-lived hundred years. Major corporations might want to register their domain names for 100 years.
I don’t think that small, independent businesses or internet
marketers would spend that much money on a single domain, when most of them have scores of domains.
Let’s consider another scenario: What if the company itself decides to shut down its business for some reason, change ownership of their business or business offering? Tech companies such as IBM, AT&T and Siemens have lasted for more than 100 years, but their offerings have changed drastically over time
With all of the possible outcomes, WordPress didn’t say how it intends to handle them; if there are will be any type of compensation or something for victims.
What do you think of this new business model. Is it ideal or not ? Chime in
