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Google is such a big company, I find it bizarre they are trying to make money in this way. It would be interesting to know what they make at the end of the pre

by demarq 8y ago

Google is such a big company, I find it bizarre they are trying to make money in this way. It would be interesting to know what they make at the end of the pre-sale.

gruez 8y ago
>I find it bizarre they are trying to make money in this way. Why not? If they charged a flat rate at launch, domain speculators would snatch up all the valuable domains and you'll have to buy it from them at an inflated price. At least with this system google is pocketing the premium rather than third parties.
ameliaquining 8y ago
My guess would be that this isn't primarily about the money (there are probably domains they could get more than $11,500 for), but rather about allocating the most in-demand domains in a way that reflects how badly people want them. A Dutch-auction-type thing like they're doing is a crude solution to this problem, but if they just went straight to GA too much valuable real estate would immediately be claimed by squatters and trolls.
- xg15 8y ago
  The squatters defense is a good point - however, this also seems to ensure that the megacorps get the best pieces before anybody else gets to choose. If defending against squatters is the top priority, they could also make it an application-driven process: Let people submit proposals about what they want to do with the domains along with a link to their organisation and have some group grant applications (preferably along some previously published criteria)
  - hombre_fatal 8y ago
    That sounds just as empty except now with massive human overhead for processing applications that can pitch whatever they want. I'd even be tempted to write up some bullshit to get a domain I want. What are they going to do, research my details? You can barely get a human on the phone at Google even when you're a paying customer. Not to mention all the hurt feelings when someone's application is denied and the domain stays undeveloped or becomes a terrible website. Auctions seem unfair but money is an extremely simple system for allocating finite resources. And it's not like you need a dictionary word domain name to have an online identity. It's almost pure vanity.
  - CydeWeys 8y ago
    That kind of program, with us being in charge of deciding who gets each domain name, would be received extremely poorly. You can just imagine. Domains would also be much more expensive, as there would need to be human evaluators in the loop for each domain name. The base price would likely need to be at least 10X higher to fund all this.
- CydeWeys 8y ago
  Bingo.
qbaqbaqba 8y ago
Maybe they aren't doing that great? What their last successful/profitable product?

by demarq 8y ago

Google is such a big company, I find it bizarre they are trying to make money in this way. It would be interesting to know what they make at the end of the pre-sale.

gruez 8y ago

>I find it bizarre they are trying to make money in this way. Why not? If they charged a flat rate at launch, domain speculators would snatch up all the valuable domains and you'll have to buy it from them at an inflated price. At least with this system google is pocketing the premium rather than third parties.

ameliaquining 8y ago

My guess would be that this isn't primarily about the money (there are probably domains they could get more than $11,500 for), but rather about allocating the most in-demand domains in a way that reflects how badly people want them. A Dutch-auction-type thing like they're doing is a crude solution to this problem, but if they just went straight to GA too much valuable real estate would immediately be claimed by squatters and trolls.

xg15 8y ago
The squatters defense is a good point - however, this also seems to ensure that the megacorps get the best pieces before anybody else gets to choose. If defending against squatters is the top priority, they could also make it an application-driven process: Let people submit proposals about what they want to do with the domains along with a link to their organisation and have some group grant applications (preferably along some previously published criteria)
- hombre_fatal 8y ago
  That sounds just as empty except now with massive human overhead for processing applications that can pitch whatever they want. I'd even be tempted to write up some bullshit to get a domain I want. What are they going to do, research my details? You can barely get a human on the phone at Google even when you're a paying customer. Not to mention all the hurt feelings when someone's application is denied and the domain stays undeveloped or becomes a terrible website. Auctions seem unfair but money is an extremely simple system for allocating finite resources. And it's not like you need a dictionary word domain name to have an online identity. It's almost pure vanity.
- CydeWeys 8y ago
  That kind of program, with us being in charge of deciding who gets each domain name, would be received extremely poorly. You can just imagine. Domains would also be much more expensive, as there would need to be human evaluators in the loop for each domain name. The base price would likely need to be at least 10X higher to fund all this.
CydeWeys 8y ago
Bingo.

qbaqbaqba 8y ago

Maybe they aren't doing that great? What their last successful/profitable product?