I would say buying their oil has more of an influence, rather than owning a .ly domain. The earning for the domains are probably insignificant compared to the oil.
yeah, let's all stop buying .ly domains and go on driving a Hummer to work, mission accomplished.
no, you should neither buy .ly nor drive a Hummer.
real hackers have a perspective about the world things, I hope.
(Full disclosure: Jeep owner. It's a diesel)
.ly domains do not work the same way. If you don't pay X$/yr for that domain, it's highly unlikely that someone else will buy it for the same price, since you probably tailored the domain to your business--so you are directly funding the regime with that money in a way oil is not.
edit: okay good, the parent was at 1 karma when I posted this and I was annoyed.
I am not sure I agree with it. It seems against the notion that multiple people are working on your business idea at a given time. If bit.ly decided to not buy this domain, do you think it is unlikely someone else would not buy it by now regardless of existence of url shortener?
Maybe I missed your point and am completely off.
EDIT: Hm, my bad, I didn't bother to look it up, just assumed it's like all other top level domains.