Re: I used to pay...
FWIW I'm paying £6 inc VAT for uk names at purely.domains, while I grumble at that (mostly at the slice Nominet take for doing bugger all other than run a database rather badly and pay themselves very generously), at least it's less than .com (I get those for under £10 somewhere else).
My advice to clients in respect of .uk is:
If it's the equivalent of the .co.uk name you use, keep it
If the .co.uk name is just held defensively (i.e. not used for anything, web, email or other) then consider how valuable that name is and consider dropping that and the .uk
When I say "consider how valuable" best names are short, no hyphens, single word, dictionary word, noun.
So I'm finding names like mikes-dodgy-second-hand-motors.co.uk and the .uk equivalent both being dropped, especially where the client bought loads of variants defensively years ago. The risk of abusive registrations seems to be far less than people thought 20 years ago.
On the other hand some just take the attitude that it's only a few quid...
I also advise not to use the .uk variant at all, just leave it parked with the registrar, keeping it solely to prevent anyone else buying it. If it gets "known" then if you decide to cancel in years to come then you risk your customers seeing a dead link or rejected email and may decide you've gone bust. But also I think most people recognise .co.uk as "legitimate" and may be unsure of .uk
Best thing Nominet could (should) do is charge a nominal amount for the variant if the client owns both.
The other thing Nominet could do to increase the value of .uk is very actively police registrations with strict T&C as to usage and limit ownership to genuine UK organisations (or persons). IIRC The Register recently reported bulk buying of lapsed .uk names by overseas speculators.
Nominet have the registry as a gift of the UK government, it's time government demanded better or put uk name management out to tender.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
