4 ms·
He founded a domain brokerage for squatters and seems to be squatting on other domains for ad revenue (read the section about the trade he made).
by rafram 6mo ago
He founded a domain brokerage for squatters and seems to be squatting on other domains for ad revenue (read the section about the trade he made).
- aswegs8 6mo agoDoesn't strike me as particularly immoral.
- rafram 6mo agoI don’t know about immoral, but it is at the very least a bit sleazy. When I look for domains for side projects, I very rarely have to abandon a name because it’s been taken by an actual operational service; it’s almost always because someone is squatting it with a “parking” page filled with sketchy ads that they’re paying almost nothing for. That isn’t doing any good for anyone besides the squatter.
- Dave0X 6mo agoWhy does a practice have to do good for anyone other than the practioner?
- rafram 6mo agoWell, if we're discussing morality, it is generally considered immoral to enrich yourself at the expense of the public good.
- sillysaurusx 6mo agoBut it’s not a public good. .com stands for commercial. It’s literally the opposite of a public good.
- rafram 6mo agoAllowing people to pay a fair price for the resources they need to start a business (rather than paying scalper prices to the bridge trolls who got there first) serves the public good. “For the public good” includes more than just feeding blind orphans.
- cornhole 6mo ago“chattel slavery isn’t bad so long as I am the slave owner”
- acessoproibido 6mo agoA bit strong to compare domain squatting with slavery don't you think?
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- PowerElectronix 6mo agoZero added value while getting a money inflow ticks my box for immoral.
- bartread 6mo agoDon’t forget parasitic. A lot of the value of these domains stems from the popularity of sites they may have been attached to in the past, or search terms that relate to them. So these people are literally making money off of the back of others’ work whilst providing no benefit themselves, probably not that much even to their advertisers. Such squatting sites are, at best, an annoyance to web users as well.
- estearum 6mo agoyeah just like laying claim to the most fertile land in your region, doing nothing with it, and waiting until your neighbors are sufficiently desperate to sell it to them for gigantic markup hugely value-added activity, and a well-earned increment.
- cbsks 6mo agoThe one takeaway I got from my engineering ethics class in college was that everyone has different morals. Debating if something is “moral” or not is useless. Education on a subject is useful, but once someone understands your point of view and still thinks it’s within/outside their morals, there’s nothing more to discuss.
- jona-f 6mo ago[flagged]
- Dave0X 6mo agoMany things should be illegal in a capitalist society. Domain investing is low in the list.
- Dave0X 6mo agoDomain registration for the purpose of resale is legit. Plenty of available names and extensions to choose from.
- era-epoch 6mo agoA thing can be both technically legitimate and also annoying and shitty.