Every time I turn on the television or check online news feeds, I get a sense the world is gripped in a palatable fear of the Corona virus pandemic. The virus is almost the ultimate incarnation of fear. It’s something that you can’t see and yet has clearly devastated families and loved ones around the world.
An irrationality seems to have gripped many people as they clean out the supermarket shelves of toilet paper, tissues, face masks and tinned staple food. The fact that the Coronavirus does not cause a person to have diarrhea has clearly been ignored.
Recently, the terror seems to be flowing through corporates as they are now asking their staff to work from home and have enforced strict hygiene guidelines for those that journey to work. This seemingly continuous diet of fear has spread like a contagion into the financial markets as they collapse around the world.
How is all this carnage going to impact the domain industry or is it business as usual?
I remember in the midst of the Global Financial Crisis reading a blog article by a notable domain investor declared that it was great to be in an industry that was immune to the world’s financial woes. I must admit that at the time I scratched my head and wrote my own article stating that if we think we are immune to a global shock then we are kidding ourselves. Shortly afterwards, the PPC rates tanked and amounts paid for domains dropped through the floor.