@Going_eth I think a bit of all that. There's also no negotiating with a declining premium, people can get the names at whatever price they deem "fair".
I think about ENS through the lens of network effects.
One fax machine is useless. Two fax machines can send one message between them. But ten thousand fax machines connected to each other create something genuinely valuable, because any one of them can reach any of the others.
When I first got into ENS, I treated names like lottery tickets. I registered anything that might sell one day. I saw potential. I saw dollar signs. I thought that all ENS needed was more hype and then someone like me would be able to sell these names. It took me a while to understand that I had the wrong expectations.
ENS Labs and the ENS DAO arent here to build exit liquidity for those of us speculating. They arent trying to create demand for random names. They're focused on building something much bigger than that, a naming protocol for the entire blockchain. Core identity infrastructure. Something long term and foundational. We can all see the possibilities.
I eventually realized the stress I felt was not because ENS failed me. It was because I was asking ENS to do something it was never designed to do. I bought names hoping someone else would buy them later. That's a gamble, not a guarantee. Once I shifted my mindset from lottery tickets to use cases, everything made more sense.
ENS succeeds when people use it, not when people try to flip them. I'm not saying this to shame anyone who is hurting right now. I've been there. I just want to share what helped me find peace with all of this.
If you came in looking for the lottery, its natural to feel disappointed. But if you zoom out, the long term value of ENS comes from identity, naming, integrations and utility, not trading. I had to learn this the hard way, and I hope saying it openly might help someone else going through the same thing.
I hate seeing people who believed in the tech and the vision of what ENS could be become the biggest fudders of ENS (not you). I don't really see anyone else fudding ENS.
@kennyzool@ensdomains *Anything* can be lost through oversight or carelessness. If you make a name your identity you should take a normal amount of care to secure it. Send the owner to a Gnosis Safe then take steps to remind you when it's time to renew or just renew it for a long time.