4 ms·

Both pricing mechanisms are great at: (a) transferring wealth from the secondary market to registrars, and (b) guaranteeing that desirable domain names get al

Both pricing mechanisms are great at: (a) transferring wealth from the secondary market to registrars, and (b) guaranteeing that desirable domain names get allocated purely on economic value terms, thus effectively shutting out non-profit-oriented enterprises from the best domain names. If someone with some quirky desire to name a domain name after their cat would like to grab the domain name and refuse to sell, this pricing scheme guarantees that such sentimental value counts for zero in the "efficient allocation" measure. Both of these seem pretty shitty to me.

sah2ed 8y ago
Desirable domains are by definition scarce -- there is not enough of them to go round to those who desire them. The current approach is essentially saying "if you really desire domain X badly, put your money where your mouth is". Do you have an alternative proposal on how these desirable domains could be allocated more efficiently?
- paultopia 8y ago
  "Efficiently" is a concept defined only by your target. If your target is economic value, then, sure this kind of auction does a pretty good job at allocating efficiently with respect to it. If your target is something like desire-satisfaction, or promoting novelty/creative use, then it might be worth trying to think about ways to preferentially allocate to people willing to put in more effort too, or, e.g., introduce some kind of lottery system for some domains for non-commercial uses.
  - cobbzilla 8y ago
    In what units do you measure "desire-satisfaction" and "promoting creative use"? How do you know that an outcome was optimal?
makmanalp 8y ago
On the other hand this seems like a pretty decent way to prevent mass domain squatting, because screw those guys. I'm sure there are still some people doing complicated cost/benefit analyses and squatting strategically but I think it'll be much less rampant.
markmark 8y ago
Without a system like this you don't get your quirky cat domain name, someone swoops in on minute 0 with a script and registers the top 1000 desirable domain names and squats them. Anything that wouldn't have been swooped up by squatters will _also_ still be available when the early access period is over and everything is $20.
icebraining 8y ago
Why is (a) shitty?

sah2ed 8y ago

Desirable domains are by definition scarce -- there is not enough of them to go round to those who desire them. The current approach is essentially saying "if you really desire domain X badly, put your money where your mouth is". Do you have an alternative proposal on how these desirable domains could be allocated more efficiently?

paultopia 8y ago
"Efficiently" is a concept defined only by your target. If your target is economic value, then, sure this kind of auction does a pretty good job at allocating efficiently with respect to it. If your target is something like desire-satisfaction, or promoting novelty/creative use, then it might be worth trying to think about ways to preferentially allocate to people willing to put in more effort too, or, e.g., introduce some kind of lottery system for some domains for non-commercial uses.
- cobbzilla 8y ago
  In what units do you measure "desire-satisfaction" and "promoting creative use"? How do you know that an outcome was optimal?

makmanalp 8y ago

On the other hand this seems like a pretty decent way to prevent mass domain squatting, because screw those guys. I'm sure there are still some people doing complicated cost/benefit analyses and squatting strategically but I think it'll be much less rampant.

markmark 8y ago

Without a system like this you don't get your quirky cat domain name, someone swoops in on minute 0 with a script and registers the top 1000 desirable domain names and squats them. Anything that wouldn't have been swooped up by squatters will _also_ still be available when the early access period is over and everything is $20.

icebraining 8y ago

Why is (a) shitty?