On a final note, “Debasing the intrinsic value” is not “a lot of smart nonsense”, and I’m sorry you feel that way about my writing. The best way I can explain the above is with the following example:
Suppose your friend came to you and said they wanted to buy the name “xyz.dcl.eth” from the creator, but didn’t know how much to bid for. What would you say? This is not a trivial question and is part of the reason why this space is so exciting, is because there really isn’t a ‘correct’ answer.
With a conventional asset, such as a stock or bond, one could simply take the present value of the future expected cash flows to arrive at a sensible valuation, which depending on the industry etc., would be more or less a ‘correct’ answer.
With DCL domains, however, in some ways it’s a lot more complex to come up with a sensible valuation. For domains, a relative comparison is often a lot easier. We would all agree, for instance, that “CocaCola.dcl.eth” is infinitely more valuable than “xyz.dcl.eth”. “xyz” has no obvious cultural significance and is not a multi-billion dollar brand such as Coca-Cola. So what would you say to your friend then?
You could do a basic comps analysis, and look at what similar names traded for in the past, although that universe would be very very difficult to define and would be very imprecise at the best of times. What’s the solution then? Well, the creator paid 100 MANA to mint the name, so logically it’s pretty reasonable to assume that around 100 MANA is a fair value for a name such as “xyz.dcl.eth”. The creator is very unlikely to sell the name below 100 MANA unless they’re desperate, and if your friend really really wanted the name, they should bid at a good premium to 100 MANA to increase the likelihood of the creator accepting.
However if names now only cost 25 MANA to mint (and likely lower in the future), then the “intrinsic value” in MANA terms is drastically reduced. Suddenly a bid of 50 MANA for “xyz.dcl.eth” doesn’t sound so bad, as it’s a 100% premium to current mint value.
I agree with your assertion that “Names that sell for 10k MANA are not going to lose in value because of this” because they fall into the elite category of highly culturally relevant/ billion-dollar brand. But to be honest that’s not most names. For the majority of good, but not amazing names, the only anchor of value is the 100 MANA minting cost.