Wow, just logged in again after a few weeks and was amazed to still see this going.
@findtim
Stay on topic. The thread is "How Popular are the .net.au Domain Names" not "What does Tim Think of .net.au Domain Names and the People that Register Them". Either add value, or start a new thread.
Who are the old guys you refer to? Do you make all your decisions based on what the old guys tell you to? Just because you can't think of a way (or haven't been told a way by 'the old guys') to use a .net.au doesn't make them worthless to everyone.
Have you considered that people use them differently to the methods you've given? Just maybe, there are more options than the ones you know?
Perhaps if you started listening you'd hear something you could use to come up with your own strategy rather than just following what old guys post on forums?
I recall Larry Bloch when CEO of NetRegistry said in an article that aftermarket sales of .com.au was worthless. He then went on to put his sticky fingers all over NetFleet. Lucky not everyone blindly followed that old guys advice.
http://www.zdnet.com/aussie-domain-aftermarket-stalls-1339290816/
Larry Bloch, CEO of Netregistry, one of Australia's largest domain name registers said that the system was bound to fail.
"Compared to the '.com' domain name space there isn't the economics to support ... the domain name after-market, which is largely driven by domain name monetisers," Bloch said.
According to Bloch this is because the number of visitors to ".com.au" domain names was smaller than for ".com" names, while the cost of registering them was higher. This left what Bloch termed "cyber-speculators", who registered common names in the hope that they would be worth more in future.
"These are the people who tend to think that domain names are worth a hell of a lot more than they actually are," Bloch said.