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Domain names are a scam, and it has persisted for so long that it seems everyone has forgotten what a scam it all is. And now it's really too late. If domain n

Domain names are a scam, and it has persisted for so long that it seems everyone has forgotten what a scam it all is. And now it's really too late. If domain names cost $1000 each, we wouldn't have squatters at all. It is really a shame to find a great domain name that is just sitting unused. ICANN's creation of hundreds more TLD's is just a further money grab in this whole thing. But of course, the .com domain is and will probably always rule.

cookiemonsta 11y ago
And what about people who just want a small blog or personal site? They won't want to spend $1000 just for that, and a huge percent would use a subdomain of a company like microsoft, google etc (like with @gmail.com, @hotmail.com etc)
- dublinben 11y ago
  Individuals shouldn't even be playing in the same sandbox as companies. From the beginning, there should have been something like .name or .me for these noncommercial purposes.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - genmon 11y ago
    One of the special qualities of the web has been that the New York Times is suddenly on a level playing field with some random blog... some random blog that might grow into, say, Buzzfeed, and eat its lunch. This breaking down of the moat around companies has allowed all kinds of disruption.
  - ctdonath 11y ago
    There are a lot of people with the same name. How to resolve them, especially vs famous people? Thankfully, I nabbed [my last name].org when I did.
    - noir_lord 11y ago
      I got <firstname><lastname>.co.uk for me in 2011, first time it was ever registered I was really surprised it was still around, never letting that one go.
  - tallanvor 11y ago
    Because "separate but equal" works?
Alupis 11y ago
> If domain names cost $1000 each, we wouldn't have squatters at all. It is really a shame to find a great domain name that is just sitting unused. Except for the most "premium" domains (single short words, etc...), few would turn down a $1000 offer on a squatted domain.
forgetsusername 11y ago
>It is really a shame to find a great domain name that is just sitting unused I think domains are overrated. Who cares if it's tesla.com vs teslamotors.com? Most people go through Google anyway; I don't think I've seen my parents type anything into the address bar, ever.
- nfriedly 11y ago
  Yep. I always chuckle* a little bit when I see a family member go to Google, type "facebook.com" in the search box, then click the first result. *It beats crying.
  - furyofantares 11y ago
    On the other hand, if they make a typing error they will likely still get the correct result, rather than some scam site.
    - jkestner 11y ago
      Hadn't thought of search engines as a URL cleaning service. I guess I do that sometimes too. Or rather, the combined address/search field does that now.
      - scott_s 11y ago
        I do that a lot. foobar.com or foo-bar.com? Both probably work, but it's a lot easier to just open a new tab, use the address bar as a search engine, and pick the one that's obviously correct.
  - covercash 11y ago
    I watched the IT director in charge of a 5000 MacBook school system do that most of the time, except sub in Yahoo for Google... Such a dirty district.
  - adevine 11y ago
    But it's really not that different than the unified address bars that all browsers support now.
makecheck 11y ago
Especially since Internet domain names were never set up to be consistent with trademark law (or heck, even the Yellow Pages), as they probably should have been. “Domain” is a terrible name in the sense that it actually does a pretty bad job of splitting businesses into their true domains. Take moving companies. We have “Apple” and “United” in that market, and those names are clear enough as long as the grouping is something like “moving companies”. They coexist in markets where Apple computers and United Airlines are well known. In the old days, these would have had two different mentions in the Yellow Pages. Yet, can there reasonably be a “moving.apple” and “moving.united” alongside “computers.apple” and “airlines.united”? No, these well-established four companies have to compete for two logical domains, because consumers only seem to care about ".com". Companies fight over domain names that they shouldn’t need to care about, and artificial “value” is attributed to these names.
- unethical_ban 11y ago
  That's what gTLDs should do going forward, even if it will be hard to change the mindset of people.
  - icebraining 11y ago
    Not really, because you can still have two companies with the same mark in the same market - as long as they're in different countries. To match trademarks, we'd need to use ccTLDs instead of gTLDs.
    - AnthonyMouse 11y ago
      That doesn't actually seem like a problem though. What's wrong with united.air.us and lloyds.bank.uk? Which actually makes the squatting problem much better because to squat on "foo" you need foo.air.us, foo.bank.us, foo.cars.us, foo.air.uk, foo.bank.uk, foo.cars.uk, foo.air.ca, foo.bank.ca...
      - icebraining 11y ago
        What's wrong with united.air.us and lloyds.bank.uk? Nothing, but those aren't the gTLDs that unethical_ban was talking about.
toxican 11y ago
I will gladly work a little harder to find a domain that fits my purposes if it means paying < $15/yr vs $1000/yr
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
cm2187 11y ago
well, .com is the only domain I know that has its own shortcut in a browser (ctr+enter, which adds "www." and ".com").
- ajonit 11y ago
  Ctr shft entr - .org Shft entr - .net
  - cm2187 11y ago
    Didn't work on chrome. CTR SHIFT ENTER behaves as CTR ENTER, and SHIFT ENTER does nothing. Are you using another browser?
    - PeCaN 11y ago
      Looks like Firefox does this.
rdl 11y ago
I'd like to see genuine differentiation in policies based on domain. You can sort of get that in ccTLDS today (since they're independent of ICANN), and some of the specialty TLDs (e.g. .bank, .trust) have interesting policies. The policy I'd love to see in a TLD is true first-come, first-serve, no trademarks/etc., AND a declining auction on landrush (with either a fixed small annual fee, or a percentage fee, or something to maintain; percentage fee also encourages current highest/best use). On day one: any domain name costs $256mm to initially register. On day two, $128mm. On day 3, $64mm. etc, down to $0 premium in the limit. Would be a fun way to handle human readable premium namespaces for other services as well.
loup-vaillant 11y ago
> If domain names cost $1000 each, we wouldn't have squatters at all. I'm not sure this is a good solution. I have a blog and I host my email, I don't want to lose my domain name to money. Instead, I'd say "If domain names were strings of random numbers", or, "if we used content based addressing"… stuff like that. Right now we can't escape the politics that ensue from having exclusive, human readable names. Exclusive random numbers are okay, because nobody would fight over any particular number when they can just get another. (Except things like 00000000, 12345678, DEADBEEF…). Human readable names are somewhat okay, as long as two entities can use the same: it just boils down to pre-internet trademark issues. It's having both at the same time that do us in.
dingaling 11y ago
> Domain names are a scam The only 'scam' I identify in the domain name system is that perpetrated by consultants who insist that Big Corp needs to buy its domain in .com, .net, .org, .tv and a hundred other TLDs to 'protect' its trademark. Thankfully the Big Corp for which I worked ignored this advice and stuck with the .com and a .org for the charitable activities. The .net has not even been registered.
giancarlostoro 11y ago
If domains were $1,000 I would expect to have a domain for longer than just a year, which could be a little bit troublesome, I like that domains expire quickly nowadays so we can actually just buy an expired domain and try new ideas with them.
- drzaiusapelord 11y ago
  Do 'we' buy them? My experience is that registrars watch them expire and buy them themselves for a hefty resale or a 3rd party broker does for resale. I tried buying an old domain of mine and some broker had it for $2500. This is very common.
  - giancarlostoro 11y ago
    I waited for one of my old domains to expire yet again and nabbed it again. They decided to stop hijacking it since it yields them no value anymore.
drzaiusapelord 11y ago
>ICANN's creation of hundreds more TLD's is just a further money grab How? It fits a market need. People are registering with foreign TLDs beecause they can't get a .com anymore. Opening up arbitrary TLDs makes a lot more sense than the status quo today. It adds more supply to the market. Soon no one will think .com has any significance. I'd rather see Elon buy tesla.cars than tesla.com, for example. The fetishization of .com needs to end. This is an unusually old-fashioned move by someone who is technically progressive. I guess there are bragging rights to having a .com and maybe shameful that he's one of the few 'big names' without his .com. .com possession is becoming a rich man's game like owning a supercar or a fabrege egg. It makes no sense today.
- AnthonyMouse 11y ago
  The problem is they've been doing ridiculous single-company gTLDs like .amex and anticompetitive nonsense like giving .antivirus to Symantec. gTLDs should be run by companies whose primary business is as a domain registrar and be limited to broad categories like .cars and .bank.

cookiemonsta 11y ago

And what about people who just want a small blog or personal site? They won't want to spend $1000 just for that, and a huge percent would use a subdomain of a company like microsoft, google etc (like with @gmail.com, @hotmail.com etc)

dublinben 11y ago
Individuals shouldn't even be playing in the same sandbox as companies. From the beginning, there should have been something like .name or .me for these noncommercial purposes.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- genmon 11y ago
  One of the special qualities of the web has been that the New York Times is suddenly on a level playing field with some random blog... some random blog that might grow into, say, Buzzfeed, and eat its lunch. This breaking down of the moat around companies has allowed all kinds of disruption.
- ctdonath 11y ago
  There are a lot of people with the same name. How to resolve them, especially vs famous people? Thankfully, I nabbed [my last name].org when I did.
  - noir_lord 11y ago
    I got <firstname><lastname>.co.uk for me in 2011, first time it was ever registered I was really surprised it was still around, never letting that one go.
- tallanvor 11y ago
  Because "separate but equal" works?

Alupis 11y ago

> If domain names cost $1000 each, we wouldn't have squatters at all. It is really a shame to find a great domain name that is just sitting unused. Except for the most "premium" domains (single short words, etc...), few would turn down a $1000 offer on a squatted domain.

forgetsusername 11y ago

>It is really a shame to find a great domain name that is just sitting unused I think domains are overrated. Who cares if it's tesla.com vs teslamotors.com? Most people go through Google anyway; I don't think I've seen my parents type anything into the address bar, ever.

nfriedly 11y ago
Yep. I always chuckle* a little bit when I see a family member go to Google, type "facebook.com" in the search box, then click the first result. *It beats crying.
- furyofantares 11y ago
  On the other hand, if they make a typing error they will likely still get the correct result, rather than some scam site.
  - jkestner 11y ago
    Hadn't thought of search engines as a URL cleaning service. I guess I do that sometimes too. Or rather, the combined address/search field does that now.
    - scott_s 11y ago
      I do that a lot. foobar.com or foo-bar.com? Both probably work, but it's a lot easier to just open a new tab, use the address bar as a search engine, and pick the one that's obviously correct.
- covercash 11y ago
  I watched the IT director in charge of a 5000 MacBook school system do that most of the time, except sub in Yahoo for Google... Such a dirty district.
- adevine 11y ago
  But it's really not that different than the unified address bars that all browsers support now.

makecheck 11y ago

Especially since Internet domain names were never set up to be consistent with trademark law (or heck, even the Yellow Pages), as they probably should have been. “Domain” is a terrible name in the sense that it actually does a pretty bad job of splitting businesses into their true domains. Take moving companies. We have “Apple” and “United” in that market, and those names are clear enough as long as the grouping is something like “moving companies”. They coexist in markets where Apple computers and United Airlines are well known. In the old days, these would have had two different mentions in the Yellow Pages. Yet, can there reasonably be a “moving.apple” and “moving.united” alongside “computers.apple” and “airlines.united”? No, these well-established four companies have to compete for two logical domains, because consumers only seem to care about ".com". Companies fight over domain names that they shouldn’t need to care about, and artificial “value” is attributed to these names.

unethical_ban 11y ago
That's what gTLDs should do going forward, even if it will be hard to change the mindset of people.
- icebraining 11y ago
  Not really, because you can still have two companies with the same mark in the same market - as long as they're in different countries. To match trademarks, we'd need to use ccTLDs instead of gTLDs.
  - AnthonyMouse 11y ago
    That doesn't actually seem like a problem though. What's wrong with united.air.us and lloyds.bank.uk? Which actually makes the squatting problem much better because to squat on "foo" you need foo.air.us, foo.bank.us, foo.cars.us, foo.air.uk, foo.bank.uk, foo.cars.uk, foo.air.ca, foo.bank.ca...
    - icebraining 11y ago
      What's wrong with united.air.us and lloyds.bank.uk? Nothing, but those aren't the gTLDs that unethical_ban was talking about.

toxican 11y ago

I will gladly work a little harder to find a domain that fits my purposes if it means paying < $15/yr vs $1000/yr

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

cm2187 11y ago

well, .com is the only domain I know that has its own shortcut in a browser (ctr+enter, which adds "www." and ".com").

ajonit 11y ago
Ctr shft entr - .org Shft entr - .net
- cm2187 11y ago
  Didn't work on chrome. CTR SHIFT ENTER behaves as CTR ENTER, and SHIFT ENTER does nothing. Are you using another browser?
  - PeCaN 11y ago
    Looks like Firefox does this.

rdl 11y ago

I'd like to see genuine differentiation in policies based on domain. You can sort of get that in ccTLDS today (since they're independent of ICANN), and some of the specialty TLDs (e.g. .bank, .trust) have interesting policies. The policy I'd love to see in a TLD is true first-come, first-serve, no trademarks/etc., AND a declining auction on landrush (with either a fixed small annual fee, or a percentage fee, or something to maintain; percentage fee also encourages current highest/best use). On day one: any domain name costs $256mm to initially register. On day two, $128mm. On day 3, $64mm. etc, down to $0 premium in the limit. Would be a fun way to handle human readable premium namespaces for other services as well.

loup-vaillant 11y ago

> If domain names cost $1000 each, we wouldn't have squatters at all. I'm not sure this is a good solution. I have a blog and I host my email, I don't want to lose my domain name to money. Instead, I'd say "If domain names were strings of random numbers", or, "if we used content based addressing"… stuff like that. Right now we can't escape the politics that ensue from having exclusive, human readable names. Exclusive random numbers are okay, because nobody would fight over any particular number when they can just get another. (Except things like 00000000, 12345678, DEADBEEF…). Human readable names are somewhat okay, as long as two entities can use the same: it just boils down to pre-internet trademark issues. It's having both at the same time that do us in.

dingaling 11y ago

> Domain names are a scam The only 'scam' I identify in the domain name system is that perpetrated by consultants who insist that Big Corp needs to buy its domain in .com, .net, .org, .tv and a hundred other TLDs to 'protect' its trademark. Thankfully the Big Corp for which I worked ignored this advice and stuck with the .com and a .org for the charitable activities. The .net has not even been registered.

giancarlostoro 11y ago

If domains were $1,000 I would expect to have a domain for longer than just a year, which could be a little bit troublesome, I like that domains expire quickly nowadays so we can actually just buy an expired domain and try new ideas with them.

drzaiusapelord 11y ago
Do 'we' buy them? My experience is that registrars watch them expire and buy them themselves for a hefty resale or a 3rd party broker does for resale. I tried buying an old domain of mine and some broker had it for $2500. This is very common.
- giancarlostoro 11y ago
  I waited for one of my old domains to expire yet again and nabbed it again. They decided to stop hijacking it since it yields them no value anymore.

drzaiusapelord 11y ago

>ICANN's creation of hundreds more TLD's is just a further money grab How? It fits a market need. People are registering with foreign TLDs beecause they can't get a .com anymore. Opening up arbitrary TLDs makes a lot more sense than the status quo today. It adds more supply to the market. Soon no one will think .com has any significance. I'd rather see Elon buy tesla.cars than tesla.com, for example. The fetishization of .com needs to end. This is an unusually old-fashioned move by someone who is technically progressive. I guess there are bragging rights to having a .com and maybe shameful that he's one of the few 'big names' without his .com. .com possession is becoming a rich man's game like owning a supercar or a fabrege egg. It makes no sense today.

AnthonyMouse 11y ago
The problem is they've been doing ridiculous single-company gTLDs like .amex and anticompetitive nonsense like giving .antivirus to Symantec. gTLDs should be run by companies whose primary business is as a domain registrar and be limited to broad categories like .cars and .bank.