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I would argue yes just buying it first is all he needed to do to deserve to be able to set his own price. People buy and sell domain names all the time and the
by 14 7y ago
I would argue yes just buying it first is all he needed to do to deserve to be able to set his own price. People buy and sell domain names all the time and the ones who scooped up Nike.com or NBA.com likely sold it for a pretty penny. They didn’t benefit society. I would argue there are lots of profitable ventures that don’t benefit society but we allow them I think smoking right away as one example. He is trying to take advantage of Microsoft mistake from what I understand. In the giant corporate world a mistake only costing 1.7mil seems like pennies and they should just grab it and put it behind them. On a side note what do you think of Bitcoin? I wanted to buy it back when it was less then 100 a coin but was broke. It would have shot up in price me doing absolutely nothing to benefit society and actually maybe one could argue hurting the environment as bitcoin mining is very energy intensive and also some may argue bitcoins facilitate criminal activities. But I would bet most here on HN would be okay with bitcoin as an investment. I see his domain no differently.
- crooked-v 7y ago> take advantage An asking price of $1.7 million is hardly "taking advantage" of a $286 billion company. Microsoft hoist themselves by their own petard here by letting this problem sit for 26 years: that's only about $65,000 per year, which is more than reasonable pay for somebody who's been effectively giving them free IT services that entire time.
- 14 7y agoI completely agree. It is pennies to this company this is no hardship for them. My personal name as a domain is being squatted on the .com domain for several thousand dollars. It is worthless and I can not imaging a time it will be worth something. But I don't complain and think I should get it for free. If I want my name domain I have to pay several thousand dollars. Had I bought it 20 years back it would have been pennies also. Such is life.
- CydeWeys 7y agoI agree that it's not taking advantage of Microsoft, but it's not because of the dollar amounts involved. If I do a fake refund scam to the tune of $20 on Amazon (which is a ~$1T company), that's still "taking advantage" of them. It doesn't matter that it's peanuts compared to their market cap, I'm still doing something wrong. And as an aside, your stated market cap for Microsoft is off by more than a trillion dollars.
- bouncycastle 7y ago> They didn’t benefit society Yes. However, whoever managed raise 1.7 mil probably did through earning it. Money goes both ways.