In October 2014, I noticed that when I wanted to renew a domain, I couldn’t find any promo codes online; even if I found one or two, they didn’t work — still the original price, no discount. Looking today at Xianhuo Promo Codes (a site), indeed all of them are invalid. This mass invalidation of promo codes feels like a “low-price trap” to me. 
Confirmed by Xianhuo Promo Codes: recently, all of Godaddy’s renewal promo codes have become invalid. They also suggest transferring domains to Namesilo, currently $8.99/year (transfer also gets $1 off), and includes free privacy protection. Domain registration isn’t optimistic either — Godaddy has restrictions: in mainland China, to use Alipay, the lowest discount is $8.99; anything below $8.99 can’t be paid via Alipay. That works out to about $9, i.e. 55–56 RMB, about the same as domestic registrars, even not cheaper than them. Combined with no promo codes for renewal — paying original price to renew is much more expensive than domestic. Godaddy is no longer the cheap, discounted choice; I’m also considering whether to transfer out of Godaddy. This mass invalidation of promo codes feels like a “low-price trap.” Previously, registering domains at Godaddy was very cheap and affordable, but once the user base grew, they started raising prices. You might say we can transfer out of Godaddy — yes you can, but transferring a domain is time-consuming and laborious; the process is cumbersome, requiring comparing different registrars, and possibly spending time adapting to a new domain backend. Many people will stay at Godaddy, waiting for promo codes to be issued again. Such “low-price traps” are almost everywhere on the internet. In a product’s early stage, it uses low-price or even free strategies to win users; once the user base reaches a certain scale, it tightens its pricing strategy. Alipay used this strategy — although Alipay was originally paid, during its so-called “promotion period,” each account had a certain amount of free quota for transferring between accounts. It was during this period that Alipay cultivated a large number of users who got used to small inter-account transfers via Alipay. So when Alipay announced the end of the promotion period and began charging for inter-account transfers, it caused considerable user dissatisfaction. By then it was hard to find a substitute product, because the user habits had already been cultivated; most users, due to Taobao, were very dependent on Alipay, and it wasn’t easy to switch to other alternatives. There’s a saying I now deeply appreciate: “The free things are the most expensive.” Free things cultivate users’ habits and even create dependence; once it’s no longer free or you lose it, users will pay a very high price. After all, habits can’t be changed overnight, otherwise they wouldn’t be called habits.
