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The relative cost, or whether it is affordable, is not the point. To re-iterate something I said in the other thread, all previous admin charges were 'cost neutral', neither losing nor making money for Nominet either way. This method however, strips Nominet almost entirely out of every electronic transfer, so therefore it is massively profitable to them.
There is no logic to an arguement which says that their admin charge for a domain name is about £3 per year, yet it is £12 to allow the registrants to effect a direct sale without Nominets' input, you're forced to pay it!
Why would anyone stop buying a name because of the £12 fee? If you don't believe that the name is worth at least that, what is your initial interest in it?
Probably doesn't involve any work - all automated. But, there are more records that need to be updated with a transfer perhaps (albeit automatically).
Maybe it's a ploy to prevent there becoming an ultra-low market; if it's not worth paying the transfer fee then it's not worth your time buying it in the first place.
"In registrar" transfers are free, but to transfer out requires a domain renewal - so you pay a years renewal fee for the transfer but get the extended renewal time.
Saying that, the .com system makes domain theft a lot easier, as it's possible to change the registrant without an "official" registry transaction.
Overall I think it's part and parcel of operating within the UK system and should be treated as such.
Another way of looking at it is that there are loads of times when I've bought more than one name because of the transfer fee - ie if you're going to pay £12 to transfer you may as well take 3 £10 names as one.
I'd much rather transfers are handled by the registry than a registrar.
Does everyone remember the Registerfly debacle?
Also, I had a few .uk names at Godaddy - they use a German registrar for their .co.uk names. The trouble I had moving those names out was ridiculous - it seems that nobody out of Godaddys 5000 staff knew anything about .co.uk names.