Private equity seems to be a form of cancer that slowly sucks the life out of everything it touches, with a single goal: to grow and spread. Can someone more knowledgeable please explain to me why I'm wrong?
nzeid 15 hours ago [-]
The reason it's easy to conclude that they're evil is because they are almost never committed to preserving or improving the quality of their investees. They are only committed to making money, and that often comes in the form of price gouging and liquidation.
dgrin91 15 hours ago [-]
(not my views, playing devils advocate)
PE strives to make things more efficient from a capital point of view. Business foois making $X in profit, and the PE firm's analysis says the can make X+Y dollars with some changes. This is 'better' because now the capital usage is more efficient and more can be spent in other places - new products, new jobs, new businesses, returns to investors, etc. And of course returns to the PE firm.
In principle an efficient economy is important on a macro scale - if all the business are stuck in how they were doing things 30 years ago then we would have reduced innovation and ultimately less jobs.
In practice there is of course a lot of money that flows back into the PE boss's pockets and.... thats it.
OutOfHere 14 hours ago [-]
It trades robustness for efficiency. It makes the business/service altogether less robust, unable to withstand shocks, unable to survive the tests of time.
cyanydeez 12 hours ago [-]
It shortens the outlook from years to months.
freetanga 15 hours ago [-]
Have you seen “Other peoples money” with Danny de Vito? I felt it explains this cancer quite well, 35 years ago.
rpjt 15 hours ago [-]
Efficiency?
nine_k 15 hours ago [-]
The classic playbook includes making a lot of debt, and then leaving the lenders holding the bag when the company files for bankruptcy. It can only be considered efficient if con artistry is efficient, that is, efficient at taking the money from the hands of people who trust other people "too much".
dgrin91 15 hours ago [-]
This is over simplistic and if everyone knew this is what happens when PE comes into play then no one would lend to PE-backed companies. Often times these debts can work out.
queenkjuul 11 hours ago [-]
Work out for the banks and shareholders yeah. Not the company and its employees
tchbnl 7 hours ago [-]
Private equity has been a cancer for the web hosting community. A single firm bought the top two control panels (cPanel and Plesk), the top virtualization solution (SolusVM), and the top billing software (WHMCS). And each year the prices are raised further and further with no real investment. It's forced a lot of smaller providers out and caused prices for customers to skyrocket. And you have to put up with it because the alternatives still aren't quite as good, or you're too locked in.
It's the same for hosting companies. A single PE firm (Endurance) owns over two dozen hosting and domain firms. The first thing they do is lay off the staff (because they already have outsourced agents) and strip the bits away until it's nothing more than a shell with a name for one of their other platforms.
PE is a cancer, and I don't even know if I can count one that has ever been a net positive for a company. All they care about is extracting more and more until all that's left is a stone.
theturtle 15 hours ago [-]
Please do not turn NameCheap to shit, CVC. It was a lot of effort to make the move when NameSecure... turned to shit.
colesantiago 9 hours ago [-]
oh sweet summer child.
we are asking a shark to spare their appetite of goodwill to their food.
nzeid 15 hours ago [-]
Goddamnit, I just moved everything to Namecheap to avoid more outages. Anyone have other recommendations in the event of the likely private equity rot?
ectospheno 15 hours ago [-]
If all you care about is avoiding outages and price then it is hard to beat cloudflare.
paranoidrobot 11 hours ago [-]
iirc Cloudflare doesn't act like a normal registrar, however. You cannot use anyone except Cloudflare for your DNS provider.
JKCalhoun 15 hours ago [-]
Looks like easyDNS and Porkbun are recommended.
(May have to test the waters at each.)
qmmmur 9 hours ago [-]
I highly recommend Porkbun. Very consistently great for almost a decade now.
yurishimo 7 hours ago [-]
I have domains on namecheap that are over a decade old. Time means nothing.
tensor 15 hours ago [-]
I've been using Gandi for years and recently have been consolidating things there. In the past I've used Google and still have some stuff and Namecheap too.
Gandi is a little more expensive, but are consistently excellent. Especially now with their new UX and org support, it's super easy to manage domains from both corporate and personal accounts with one login.
jsheard 15 hours ago [-]
Gandi was also bought out by private equity a few years ago, as far as I know their service is still fine but they keep raising their prices without any rhyme or reason. They want $38 to renew a .com now, and despite those price hikes they also rugpulled users of their previously-included email service by turning it into a paid add-on.
Look forward to Namecheap heading the same way in a few years!
tensor 15 hours ago [-]
Oh yeah? Dammit, I must have missed that news. That sucks. :-(
steventruong 15 hours ago [-]
I’m happy with Porkbun.
JKCalhoun 15 hours ago [-]
Looks like easyDNS was recommended.
darinpantley 15 hours ago [-]
For anyone wondering: "the deal covers both Namecheap and its sister platform, Spaceship."
What is the simplest, and least path of resistance to starting my own Registrar? Do I have to pay a fee for each TLDs, gTLDs that I want to be able to make it available for registration?
woleium 12 hours ago [-]
Become an ICANN-accredited registrar. This unlocks direct access to gTLD registries and their registry-registrar agreements, which contain provisions for registrar pricing and notice of fee changes.
icyfox 15 hours ago [-]
Good for Namecheap. They're still my default when I'm searching for new domains, even though I end up registering somewhere else (their bulk search is still best in class imo).
I'm a bit surprised at their revenue numbers considering domain registration is pretty much a commodity at this point. I always assumed non-technical people would first go to a web host/email provider that lets them buy a domain vs. a domain registrar that also supports email and web hosting. Clearly I'd be wrong.
nine_k 15 hours ago [-]
> surprised at their revenue numbers
I suppose that web and email hosting, and "security services" constitute a large part of it. Domain registration is not necessarily even the biggest part.
14 hours ago [-]
kennywinker 15 hours ago [-]
Good for namecheap, bad for everyone else.
Havoc 13 hours ago [-]
Literally just renewed domains with them hours ago. Worrying that this is being seen as an acquisition worthy space
donperignon 15 hours ago [-]
Soon they will change their name to namexpensive… time to move on to other options not managed by vampires
SilverElfin 15 hours ago [-]
Are there guides on how to move domains from Namecheap to whoever the new recommended provider is?
blahyawnblah 15 hours ago [-]
Typically you just need to unlock the domain, obtain an authorization code from your current registrar, and then initiate the transfer process with the new registrar.
dismalaf 15 hours ago [-]
Ugh, all my domains are with Namecheap, since Google stopped dealing with domains and CloudFlare and GoDaddy seem more evil. Also I appreciated Namecheap's support of Ukraine.
Hopefully it's not too predatory and the owner just wanted to cash out some chips; some corps do okay under private equity (Suse for example) but lots get ripped to shreds...
gavinsyancey 15 hours ago [-]
Shit I have domains there. Anyone have recommendations for a good cheap registrar that supports .io?
Havoc 13 hours ago [-]
Porkbun
mdesq 11 hours ago [-]
namesilo has been decent for me
justsomehnguy 12 hours ago [-]
> Richard Kirkendall, founder and CEO of Namecheap, will remain with the company, retaining a significant shareholding and continuing to oversee its operations.
I hope Mr. Kirkendall would continue to oversea its operations and continue to pay its employs a good salary.
So looks like I should move my domains, what's the recommendation
jonah-archive 15 hours ago [-]
I advise people to use porkbun generally. Personally I use and like EasyDNS, though their UI is a little quirky.
anonym29 11 hours ago [-]
njal.la! famously founded by a co-founder of TPB. great prices, great privacy. probably among the least likely registrars to ever sell out to PE
DrewADesign 15 hours ago [-]
Do you think they have an enshttifying strategy before hand? Or do you think they just get in there and McKinsey their way to a worse product on the fly?
tensor 15 hours ago [-]
It can be either, but in both cases the ultimate goals are the same: increase efficiency. So if they buy multiple domain registrars then they can share infrastructure and staff and become more efficient.
Or, without merging companies they can simply change the goal from growth to efficiency and "make do with less" and then that naturally leads to enshitification.
Rendered at 13:08:47 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
PE strives to make things more efficient from a capital point of view. Business foois making $X in profit, and the PE firm's analysis says the can make X+Y dollars with some changes. This is 'better' because now the capital usage is more efficient and more can be spent in other places - new products, new jobs, new businesses, returns to investors, etc. And of course returns to the PE firm.
In principle an efficient economy is important on a macro scale - if all the business are stuck in how they were doing things 30 years ago then we would have reduced innovation and ultimately less jobs.
In practice there is of course a lot of money that flows back into the PE boss's pockets and.... thats it.
It's the same for hosting companies. A single PE firm (Endurance) owns over two dozen hosting and domain firms. The first thing they do is lay off the staff (because they already have outsourced agents) and strip the bits away until it's nothing more than a shell with a name for one of their other platforms.
PE is a cancer, and I don't even know if I can count one that has ever been a net positive for a company. All they care about is extracting more and more until all that's left is a stone.
we are asking a shark to spare their appetite of goodwill to their food.
(May have to test the waters at each.)
Gandi is a little more expensive, but are consistently excellent. Especially now with their new UX and org support, it's super easy to manage domains from both corporate and personal accounts with one login.
Look forward to Namecheap heading the same way in a few years!
https://archive.ph/i9vOk
I'm a bit surprised at their revenue numbers considering domain registration is pretty much a commodity at this point. I always assumed non-technical people would first go to a web host/email provider that lets them buy a domain vs. a domain registrar that also supports email and web hosting. Clearly I'd be wrong.
I suppose that web and email hosting, and "security services" constitute a large part of it. Domain registration is not necessarily even the biggest part.
Hopefully it's not too predatory and the owner just wanted to cash out some chips; some corps do okay under private equity (Suse for example) but lots get ripped to shreds...
I hope Mr. Kirkendall would continue to oversea its operations and continue to pay its employs a good salary.
https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salary/Namecheap-Ukraine-Salarie...
Or, without merging companies they can simply change the goal from growth to efficiency and "make do with less" and then that naturally leads to enshitification.