
Tuvalu Makes $4M a Year - jwdmsd1
https://factinator.com/tuvalu-island/
======
basseq
To complete the title: "Tuvalu Makes $4M/yr from the .tv Domain".

From a December 2019 Washington Post article[1], there are ~500,000 registered
.tv domains. The math on that works out to license fees of ~$8/domain
($4M/500k).

Considering .com is around $10/yr and .tv is around $30/yr[2], I'm interested
to know where the incremental $12 goes ($30 - $8 - $10).

[1] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-
games/2019/12/23/tuvalu...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-
games/2019/12/23/tuvalu-is-tiny-island-nation-people-its-cashing-thanks-
twitch/)

[2] Namecheap

~~~
vmception
> I'm interested to know where the incremental $12 goes

Uh everyone thats not the passive royalties holder? What answer do you really
want?

~~~
basseq
Obviously. More to the point, what other incremental costs exist, if any, that
would account for a $20 premium in price when cost appears to be going up by
$8?

~~~
vmception
most likely all profit for incumbents supported by high barriers of entry for
a small market.

------
spacemark
Little recompense in the face of losing their nation to the carbon-emitting
activities of large nations, who do not admit them as refugees.

[https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/will-tuvalu-
di...](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/will-tuvalu-disappear-
beneath-the-sea-180940704/)

~~~
lazyjones
Why are you linking a 16 years old article that has been proven wrong? Tuvalu
is not shrinking or sinking.

[https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-19/fact-check-is-the-
isl...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-19/fact-check-is-the-island-
nation-tuvalu-growing/10627318)

------
vmception
> Isn’t it amazing that a country that’s merely a speck in ocean ... controls
> _something so crucial to the internet world?!_

I spit my tea out bahaha

But on a more "substantive" note, I think I did a case study 12 years ago
about what an invasion of Tuvalu could look like - by private persons, and we
mapped out their satellite and internet infrastructure for how to disable
that. I had only ever heard of the country because of this TLD and looking it
up.

------
nicwolff
Somewhere in a paper file I have the faxes that I exchanged with the office of
the Prime Minister of Tuvalu back in about 1995 trying to explain the value of
their TLD and how my (little) company could help them monetize it.
Embarrassingly, I just got busy with client projects and ghosted them... It's
nice to see that they are seeing substantial revenue from the domain now, and
stand to see more when their agreement with Verisign expires next year.

~~~
anw
Just curious, what strategies were you going to take to help them build it
out, and just how much "build out" were you planning to do?

And just to be clear, I don't mean this in a sarcastic cynical way. I am
genuinely curious on how people built out such platforms and surrounding
infrastructure during the initial build-up of the WWW.

------
mckee1
This led me to look up whether the British Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos
Islands), and therefore the British Government, received any money as a result
of the .io domain.

It appears not. [1]

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.io](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.io)

[1]
[https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld/ldtoday/writtens/11...](https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld/ldtoday/writtens/11082014.htm#hdg-
Internet)

~~~
ForHackernews
The British shouldn't get money, but the Chagosians forcibly evicted by the
British probably deserve it more than most:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chagossians#Eviction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chagossians#Eviction)

Sad that they aren't seeing a penny, apparently.

~~~
s_dev
It's amazing to me that British seem to get the full PR whack of that
attrocity when it was all under the auspices of the US who paid the Brits to
kick them out.

Kind of like how we all collectively forget that the Allies dropped the bomb
on Japan and not just the "Americans".

~~~
dhosek
TIL that the Americans consulted with the British before dropping the bomb on
Hiroshima (but declined their request for British participation in the
mission). The Soviets were apparently not notified in advance (although I
could be wrong about that) and the British had veto power over what would be
revealed to the Soviets about the bombing.

------
allard
[https://www.wired.com/1998/09/tuvalu/](https://www.wired.com/1998/09/tuvalu/)

