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Comment by simongr3dal | Hacker News Reader

I understand that no matter what there are going to be some squatters out there hoping for a chance to strike gold with a unique domain name, or maybe they are just collectors for some weird reason.

But, please don't make the problem worse by hoarding/snapping dropped domain names automatically.

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I have a nonsensical word that I use for naming things when testing. The other day I decided to register the domain as sometimes it would be handy to have some throwaway DNS names for things I'm testing. Well the .com was taken and on the page they have it listed for sale for $2400. No one is every going to pay that.

Now that the .dev TLD is GA, I just bought the .dev domain for $12/yr. Works good enough for my purposes.

I really have a strong dislike for domain squatters. They are literally adding no value.

Like * drop shipping * trading * and so many other jobs that make money out of money without benefiting anyone except themselves

That's not necessarily true. A viewpoint is that the sales they are securing wouldn't have been made otherwise. For example, a website about high end electronics that is supported by drop-ship based ads for product purchases. Those sales might not have been made were it not for the visitor going to that site.

Also, an argument could easily be made for all the items on Amazon that are fulfilled my the merchant as being the equivalent of drop-shipping because Amazon is basically listing stuff that others are selling and shipping on their behalf.

Well this is worse because domain squatters take the domain and its no longer available.

That is a completely inept comparison. Domain squatting serves no purpose other than lining the owner’s pockets in what many would consider an unethical manner. Domain names are finite and cannot be replaced as a manufactured product can. A more accurate comparison would be buying every lot of land in an area, another finite resource, without any intention to use the land for yourself with the only goal of then marking it up significantly to milk a potential purchaser without adding any value to the transaction.

I know of an owner of a grocery store in a small town where I used to live, he bought a few lots of land here and there in the surrounding area such that there wasn't any contigous area big enough for a competing store to be.

It was a small town of maybe 500 people, and the nearest city was 6 miles away.

I’m not too sure which one I would consider worse. That approach would be similar to buying every desirable domain containing a certain keyword when you operate within the same market. I personally believe the way to beat out competitors in a market is by the quality of service and value added, not by utilizing an artificial barrier that prevents anyone else from entering. I can understand his approach even if I don’t necessarily agree with it. Although, I also believe that competition is better for any market.

surely lubricating the wheels that set prices is worth a reasonable fraction of your economic output. lets say 10%?

Still waiting for a .dev domain I tried to purchase at 8:00:30 to be registered to me. It doesn't seem like the system is working effectively.

I tried to register my name in Google Domains and the site was just hammered. I then ended up registering with Namecheap even though it was a bit more expensive.

Several weeks ago I was using Namecheap's domain checker to check the availability of $name with multiple TLDs. About 10 minutes later one of the domains I checked was taken. That made me wonder whether Namecheap itself or the backend service they use sold my search request to a domain grabber...

I know that a few years back this used to be an issue, because registrars were allowed to register domains for a brief period of time without actually paying for them [1].

This does sound pretty sketchy though. I'd check back in a few days to see if the domain has been released.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_tasting

I processed mine at around 8:00:30 too, and it didn't go through until around 12:30pm. Hang in there. As long as it says pending/processing, it'll get there. :) Even my bank card debit posted before the registration completed lol.

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