Is a .AU domain worth stressing over?

Have you received an email from your domain name registrar telling you that .AU (as opposed to .com.au) is coming?

Did they tell you to sign-up or miss out?

While I’m all for reserving your intellectual property if it’s going to be useful for you, I think in the scheme of things, for most small business owners, registering their .AU domain is a low priority.

Small business owners have many things to worry about and this issue is not as big as is being made out.

The marketing tactics being used are scare mongering rather than in a businesses’ best interests.

Often the businesses or people pushing the domains stand to make a profit or commission from you buying or renewing the domain and they are not always transparent about this.

It may be worth paying the $9 or whatever registration fee for peace of mind but the scare tactics and lack of transparency have been bugging me.

1. auDA makes money from this, they are the ones issuing press releases telling people to buy

smartcompany.com.au/technology/seo/smes-demand-answers-auda-introduction-au-domain/

2. Domain registrars make money from this, so they happily feed out the press releases telling people to buy

3. Many web designers/IT people are registered re-sellers so they get commission from the domain registrars when people renew. They also feed out the press releases telling people to buy.

https://geekflare.com/best-domain-affiliate-programs/

4. .au doesn't have the same stringency as .com.au requiring you to have an ABN to register which again smacks of .auDA just making money as opposed to actually caring about people

https://commonsensemarketing.com.au/domain/cheap-australian-domains/

5. It was a failure in the UK (.uk)

https://www.theregister.com/2020/01/31/uk_address_bulgarians/

6. It was a failure in NZ (.nz)

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/103225575/how-many-people-are-using-nz-domain-names

7. It's a newer domain so people end up associating it with new, less experienced businesses or scams. As per what happend in UK and NZ above.