Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, recently proposed that the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) should introduce a recurring fee based on market demand. He pointed out that the current registration and maintenance fees for ENS domains are very low, which leads to a trade-off between domain ownership strength and fairness, and the highly speculative nature of the ENS secondary market also fails to ensure the effectiveness of the market.

The model proposed by Vitalik allows users to bid on a specific domain name, and if the bidding continues for a long enough time, the valuation of the domain name will rise to the bidding level, and the annual fee will be proportional to the valuation. He also proposed a capped demand-based recurring pricing model, which provides stronger protection for domain name holders, allowing them to pay a fixed annual fee for the domain name, thereby guaranteeing ownership for at least a certain number of years.

In addition, Vitalik emphasized that although the pricing of ENS is designed to be changeable, it is difficult to change at this stage. He believes that although the registration fee for domain names in ENS is low, this does not generate enough income for the ENS DAO to effectively deal with key public goods. He suggested that if changes to ENS domain name pricing itself are not possible, a market-based approach should be strongly considered, that is, explicitly encouraging markets with different rules in subdomains.

Jeff Lau, a core developer of ENS, said that while allowing dynamic pricing/renewal might help, it is too late now. He believes that the current ENS system works well and the pricing is reasonable enough to see some domain name expiration. He pointed out that Vitalik's proposal is more about the congestion problem of the domain name space and more funds to the ENS DAO to fund public goods, but accessibility has not received enough attention.

Nick Johnson, founder and core developer of ENS, also responded to Vitalik's proposal. He raised three core issues that need to be considered: domain name type issues, externality issues, and Harberger tax registration issues. Nick Johnson believes that any proposal that hopes to change the way ENS domain names are charged should consider these issues.