(Yes, I think "domaining" is abusing a common good, and am willing to burn some karma over it.)
While asking real estate agents the best way to go about selling my land, a developer overhears my conversation and says, "You should just give your land away. You've already prevented people who could have done something better with it for the past few years while you did nothing with it. Why should you profit too?"
I don't condone domain squatting for the sake of making quick and easy cash. But I bought the domains with good intentions of how to use them, and just never found the time to do what I had hoped. Now I'm looking to see who else wants them. I've not prevented anyone from implementing their own good ideas somewhere else.
Look, I understand that you had no ill intentions, and I understand that the things I said are not nice things. But: the fact is that nobody could use those names for a couple of years and anyone who wants to use it in the future will most likely have to pay you quite a bit more than the name would have cost when claimed directly from the registrar. Those are bad things, and I think steering you and others away from this course of action is appropriate.
I'd much rather see a domain in the hands of a potential developer than an explicit domainer.
Now I'll probably lose karma over this one, but its worth it.
I completely agree that handing the domain to a domainer would make things worse, not better, though. I was under the impression that you just wanted to sell to the highest bidder, though.
On the road, "frontier" "unused" "common-good" land delivers benefit to the general public by way of open spaces, natural resources, scenery, production of oxygen. On the internet, unused domain name provides very little in terms of benefit and/or detriment to the general public. To the professional domainer, an unused domain represents a potential market derived from a commodity who is waiting for the cost of production to be less than the inherent market value.
As domainers branch out from type-in-traffic, product category, lead gen asset purchases into generic/future brands, new TLDs, etc less and less of the commodity will be available for the general public.