WordPress.com Launches 100-Year Domain and Hosting Plan for $38K – WP Tavern
WordPress.com is now promoting a 100-year plan, one of many longest out there within the trade, for a one-time cost of $38,000. It contains managed WordPress internet hosting (no matter that appears like in 100 years), a number of backups throughout geographically distributed information facilities, submission to the Web Archive if the location is public, 24/7 devoted help, and a website that doesn’t have to be renewed by the client for a century.
ICANN, the Web Company for Assigned Names and Numbers, limits area registration to a most of 10 years. Auto-renewing after this time requires the client to resume on time and preserve their cost methodology up to date. A 100-year plan removes these uncertainties however nonetheless hinges on the registrar staying in enterprise into the subsequent century.
Prospects who purchase into the plan might want to have superior confidence in WordPress.com, coupled with the idea that domains will nonetheless be necessary to the basic structure of the net a long time from now.
Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg commented on the difficulties in pricing the 100-year plan throughout his presentation at WordCamp US 2023, whereas concurrently discouraging WordPress product house owners from providing lifetime licenses. The excellence right here is that the 100-year plan has a finite size of time, even when its future help appears unfathomable in the meanwhile.
“It additionally received me serious about lifetime licenses, which I believe we must always cease doing within the WordPress world,” Mullenweg stated.
“If you happen to’ve ever labored with an accountant or an acquirer they don’t like when you have got these as a result of it’s primarily an open ended dedication, together with typically with help. How do you acknowledge that income? Supply a 20 12 months plan or one thing. I believe whenever you’re saying ‘lifetime,’ it form of cheapens the phrase. If we’re actually considering long-term, what guarantees we’re making to our clients, I believe we must always re-examine these practices.”
Mullenweg additionally stated he was impressed by the Long Now Foundation, a non-profit established to foster long run considering. The group’s first mission is the “Clock of the Lengthy Now,” a mechanical monument designed to maintain correct time for the subsequent 10,000 years:
It’s nonetheless being assembled deep inside a mountain in west Texas. The Clock gives a uncommon invitation to suppose and engineer on the timescale of civilization. It affords an everlasting image of our private connection to the distant future.
WordPress.com is constructing one thing parallel to this within the digital world, enabling individuals to create their very own digital, lasting monuments and protect their houses on the internet.
Embedded within the new providing can also be a poignant reminder that WordPress.com is a website registrar, as the corporate lately made a bid to capture Google Domain customers forward of their domains being bought off to Squarespace. Even when the brand new 100-year internet hosting plan is just too costly for 99.9% of potential clients, it gives the look that the corporate is able to internet hosting entrusted domains for the long run.
No one, not even WordPress.com, is aware of what that may appear to be in 50 years, but it surely’s an bold, thought-provoking providing. What assets will a URL (Uniform Useful resource Locator) level to 50 years from now? Or will URLs be discarded into the scrap pile of out of date constructing blocks as quickly as there’s a greater, extra environment friendly approach to determine net addresses? What does longevity appear to be within the digital world?