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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

Your anger is understandable, but think of it this way: you are both fighting the same fight. Their action may well shorten the length of the remaining time for Putin, gives a very small comfort to their employees and if enough companies do this then it will hopefully make some real change for the better. Russia may be able to exist in isolation from the world, but not for long.

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From the inside, it doesn't quite look that way. The state has been doing a lot to become less reliant on imports in the last decade.

If you also consider examples of North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba and many other dictatorships, you'll see that isolation doesn't really correlate with regime change.

Yes, understood. I get where you are coming from, but at the same time I totally understand that for a company with such a large footprint in Ukraine it is absolutely unacceptable to continue to do business with what is now properly termed 'the enemy'. The price for access to the global market is that you behave like a team player and that you don't willy nilly invade other countries.

Even if isolation does not necessarily correlate with regime change that is still something that in the end gets decided within the country, not outside of it. After all, regime change is exactly what Putin was after in Ukraine so that would seem to be fair turnabout.

This war has created such pain and damage in only a few days its unimaginable. See my previous comments for my position on russians, but at the same time, out of solidarity i think they should move out of namecheap. Its too sensitive for the company to debate it and process it. People that last week were working at tech giants, people like you and i, were here commenting and debating and now they need to hold guns in their hands and fight in a war started by russia while their families are displaced.

So out of solidarity, russian users could move their domain names out and leave it as is.

> This war has created such pain and damage in only a few days its unimaginable.

Not to spoil your evening but it is so far perfectly imaginable, though it very well could become unimaginable soon.

I am well aware. Tbh i am trying to figure in my mind what the first target will be. Hope its just and overreaction on my part.

Edit: grammar

At a guess a minor city in the North East of Ukraine, or one in Europe away from fall-out ending up over Russia. The latter would not be worth thinking about any further, you can kiss the world goodbye in that case.

The 'lets start with a small nuke' aka tit-for-tat scenario has been wargamed literally to death: it ends with total annihilation.

I don't think Putin is that brave. But he's also perfectly capable of killing millions of Ukranians with conventional weapons.

That will have the exact same effect. Why do you think Kyiv is still standing relatively unopposed? It's not as if Russia lacks bombers. But Putin knows very well that if they are moving for a Grozny scenario that the West will have to react, initially probably by wiping out the invaders in the hope that that will put an end to this but it may well escalate from there.

True however isolation does help limit the damage they can cause through influence and soft power

All of those countries have support from larger countries that aren't party to the sanctions/embargoes they face. Russia is the entirety or a substantial part of that support. Who does Russia turn to that wouldn't worry about being similarly isolated?

The problem with sanctions is that they A) fail to cause regime change and B) cause deaths. In Venezuela, sanctions caused 40,000 deaths in 2 years.

Now, domain names going away won't cause deaths, but then again they won't cause regime change.

Russia has been propping up Venezuela. Maybe there will be quite a few regime changes this year?

On the contrary, their action plays right into Russian government propaganda.

That's beside the point. With the presence they have in Ukraine they are forcing their employees to trade with what is at the moment their mortal enemy. That's impossible.

Personally I think the tax bit is thin, but I totally understand the pressure on their employees and that that does not feel right. They are waiting for the next missile impact while at the same time they are working to keep the websites of their enemy up and running, that's not something you should want or expect.

Their mortal enemy is Russia - the state and the government - not every individual Russian.

But in the absence of any ability to hurt said mortal enemy, they seem to have picked a target by association that is within their reach, so as to hurt something related to the enemy.

I understand why this is happening, but I don't see it as justifiable.

I agree, which is why I argued upthread that they exempt private individuals and focus on domains that are operated by companies.

Until those Russians do something they are supporting the status quo

What do you expect them to do?

Do you realize how many people would suffer and even die because of that?

More or less than during the war in Ukraine?

In the country where the problem originates or in some other country?

How many Russian people are gonna die because of losing the ability to have their domain registered with Namecheap?

And yes, people will suffer, that's what happens when one country invades their neighbor in an unprovoked attack. You're placing blame in the wrong place here.

You are right - people do suffer already. That does not mean that you should purposely act to harm people even more just because “that’s what happens”. Your actions are your own responsibility.

It's not just because "that's what happens", it's a deliberate act to discourage the Russian state from continuing in their current course of action, and it significantly less destructive (to an absurd degree) / will cause significantly less suffering than what Russia is doing in Ukraine as we speak.

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