Hacker News Reader

Comment by zx8080 | Hacker News Reader

Isn't it how every market works?

The DNS namespace is global and shared. There's only one, really; I don't know if it is the best place for a [free] "market", as it isn't really free. Within reason, I can't start a competing DNS. The best I can do is choose another name … and still pray the price jacking doesn't happen.

The incentives here are perverse: the registry knows that changing domain names has a high switching cost; we should not have the "market" dynamics encouraging them to start, effectively, extorting domain owners. "That web presence you built up? It would be a shame if anything were to happen to it…"

I actually thought there were ICANN rules against this sort of thing.

With so many TLDs, and the acceptance of domain hacks, e.g. usefennel.co (available lol!) if your name is fennel, I think there is plenty of competition.

The real estate analogy is good. Find a cheap town!

Coming up with a variant — like "usefennel" for "fennel", is covered in the comment you're replying to. You're still at the whim of the registry/registrar, if they start pulling this crap.

Imagine you’d have to pay $850 next year to keep your phone number.

You probably would if it is a short one like 131313 in Australia (sure there are US equivalents)

Not everything is rented.

For now.

And ever. At some point customers would simply revolt and flock to someone with mode meaningful business model

Someone tell that to Adobe and Autodesk.

I told Adobe to sod off long time ago and replaced all their products I was using with the ones that offer perpetual license.

"You will own nothing, and be happy." -WEF

Yes, which is why markets need a land value tax paid out to the public.

What's being produced and who are the market actors here?

How does Google "own" this "market"?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com