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Comment by angersock | Hacker News Reader

Domain squatters are scum. You're scum. Congrats.

This attitude puzzles me a little, especially on Hacker News where there is a good-sized contingent of libertarian free-market types. Domains are an asset with value. What's wrong with buying them and then selling them for as much as you can. How does it differ from the sale of any other item or piece of information with value?

Domain names are an artificial monopoly that does not work, unless we all agree to play fair.

Otherwise, Oracle could have bought every common word domain at the birth of the internet.

Well put.

The problem is that speculators are not adding value to the market, they're subtracting from it. They've become parasitic actors.

Honest question, why should I worry about adding value to a market which I'm not actively pursuing?

I'm a developer and buy domains on whims of various service/fun ideas. I've been interested in domains since early highschool and collecting them is a hobby of mine which has happened to earn me some money from people reaching out to me.

You shouldn't worry about it, the market should be regulated towards efficiency, then speculation wouldn't be a problem.

Between the HN attitude shift and this article being flagged (maybe if I linked to a medium article it would be fine. /s) maybe this community isn’t for me anymore.

What did you expect?

You didn't post about the cool sites you built. You didn't show off your code. You didn't add value.

You posted bragging about "Hey, what if I 'collect' more domains? How much money would that be worth?"

You're not displaying something that most would consider "hacking".

I mean, I suppose you're not wrong.

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