I would just like to push back on this point, for those of you who don't understand the Forever Domains and why they're great for the right customer.
Yep. Epik can do a lot to appreciate the value of the 399 deposit. Buy what does that do for the domainer? The domainer can save the 399, pay annual renewal through regular auto renew, and appreciate that money which will go to their pocket.
It seems you don't have a problem understanding that Epik can do a lot to appreciate the value of the $399 deposit over time - one of the problems appears to be that you don't understand it from the domainer perspective - and that's perfectly fine.
I'm assuming here, and correct me if I'm wrong, that one the issues is it that most people here don't understand the economics and that Forever Domains play in both the registrant and the registrar favor in the medium to short term. You should probably read up on calculating CLV, and imagine how that - given the areas that Epik operates in - plays out over time. There's more than just basic math and registry costs for the registrar at play, so adding the renewal prices together and notice that that only covers 25 years is silly, at most.
You need to go out more and see how business actually operate - you think Google or GoDaddy don't lose money on certain products if you just do the basic math of it for the short term. You see Forever Domains as a scam because 1. you're unable to see how it fosters long-term business relationships with Epik - 2. you're focused on the value to domainers instead of value to end-user.
It's not an entirely honest to call a product a scam just because it doesn't serve you directly. We have many customers who have been saved by the Forever Registration - securing it has prevented many domain expiration in cases of lost account access, transfer of businesses to other entities, replacement of people and roles and other situations. People really do set their businesses and forget believe or not, no matter how essential a domain is for business. Domainers are so focused on domains that they forget people build long-lasting businesses, and business owners are so focused on running their business that they forget their domains.
So the reality here is that the Forever Domains are not directly for domainers, in a way. They sure can have them for their most long-term names, but domainers are not the main beneficiaries of the Forever Registration for sure. Domainers will always try and save all the bucks they can find to spend on other domains to get more ROI.
But sometimes the best ROI for an end-user is just making sure that your domain does not go down and have the peace of mind that it won't expire - and you (and other registrars by the way) severely underestimate how valuable that is for both end-users and business owners.