4 ms·

YC startups are abandoning .com

39 points by oyster143 2mo ago

Grombobulous 2mo ago
If you take .ai out of it, .com is still dominant.
- mojuba 2mo ago
  Exactly, and nothing will ever match the "prestige" of .com .ai is also kind of cool right now but it will probably lose its appeal after some years when everything will become AI and the world will get tired of the term. But .com is still at the top of the food chain. If you can survive for a few years, raise your series A/B, you will likely have enough money to acquire your sexy single-word .com name.
  - charlieyu1 2mo ago
    Just found out the great ol’ command.com is taken by somebody random
    - dhosek 2mo ago
      Many of the “good” simple names were grabbed by folks when registration was free in th 90s. I’m still annoyed that thanks to a missed payment, I lost quixote.com.
- ButlerianJihad 2mo ago
  These vanity ccTLDs are crazy to me. ".ai" is a fake gTLD. I bet that many users and possibly even some admins do not understand that it belongs to a tiny island nation. For years, Twitter used ".ly" and it was not widely known that this belonged, ultimately, to Libya. The other ccTLDs, such as .io and .co, have certain "nerd cachet" and people think the occupants are cool, until the rug is pulled and they need to reckon with the fact that all registrants were actually cybersquatters and victims of rampant capitalism. My advice to any startup that can't get a .com, is to find a legitimate gTLD that you can occupy. Even ".us" is available to anyone in the USA. I do not understand the shame, or reluctance, to occupy space in ".us". Why is it so rare? Do you hate America? Seriously, do you hate her so much, you can't live here with her in cyberspace? If you choose a ccTLD and you become attached to it, or your customers become attached to it, or your software is attached to it, someday you will need to face the music when Genovia is invaded, or transfers its sovereignty to someone who wants to enforce Genovian supremacy on the Internet.
cakbeslik 2mo ago
I never thought domains are actually uper important for startups. .com was always cool, then ther was an .io madness, never liked it, still go with .com or .co
rvz 2mo ago
At the end of the day, .com will still remain the most valuable and all startups will grow up into buying a .com
- benatkin 2mo ago
  Counter-example: Alphabet doesn't have alphabet.com
  - SJMG 2mo ago
    They have abc.xyz
  - rvz 2mo ago
    Who ever has alphabet.com will be able to sell it for 7 figures anyway, which is the point.
    - ggcr 2mo ago
      TIL that alphabet.com belongs to BMW group
  - philipwhiuk 2mo ago
    Counter-counter point: It's not really used in branding either by any of the child companies. So they don't need it.
  - CodesInChaos 2mo ago
    They have google.com, which is the brand they use towards customers. The Alphabet brand is little more than a stock ticker.
  - newleaf 2mo ago
    They use abc.xyz though, which is fun at least.
FlamingMoe 2mo ago
They will certainly buy the .com once they reach a certain level of stability.
- andriy_koval 2mo ago
  it will be much more expensive by then.
vlucas 2mo ago
> YC startups are abandoning .com They are not "abandoning" .com domains. They are just really hard to find available or cheap enough to buy, so they launch with something else instead! .com will always be king
- manueltgomes 2mo ago
  Bingo. either you bough a .com a while ago or you have to pay a lot. A while ago we had the .ly domains. Now .ai. Things change depending on "fashion" if you can call it that.
  - DanielHB 2mo ago
    Oh god my company just switched to .io and that was a huge PITA. I hope we don't go .ai...
    - robin_reala 2mo ago
      You just switched to .io knowing that it might be decommissioned in the not-too-distant future?
      - computomatic 2mo ago
        Perhaps they finally finished their migration off .su
      - applfanboysbgon 2mo ago
        It would shock me if that domain were actually allowed to be killed off by pure bureaucracy. I would like to believe that at some point bureaucracy must give way to concerns for the humans it serves, and if nothing else there is enough money involved with the industry that uses it that they'll probably be able to lobby effectively, one way or another.
      - DanielHB 2mo ago
        wait what? I know nothing about this.
the__alchemist 2mo ago
Is non .com/.org, and hyphens still haram? I registered a new domain last week; I went with non-hyphenated .com. More verbose than ideal, but I chose based on my previous understanding. I remember .ly was a thing for a while, then the tech companies would do *ly.com instead.
CollinEMac 2mo ago
I thought .dev and .app would be more popular actually. The rapid increase in .ai makes sense though.
- 405126121 2mo ago
  From personal experience .dev is a little weird. For one thing its on the HSTS preload list, enforcing https. You cannot make a http://... request to a .dev domain from most browsers. I found this out the hard way after trying to use .dev for... development.
  - CodesInChaos 2mo ago
    I understand using http on localhost and in some cases local domains accessible within the LAN. But I don't see much point in using http for public domains, especially since browsers apply many restrictions to insecure origins (http://*.localhost http://*.localhost is considered secure).
  - xhkkffbf 2mo ago
    That's a deal breaker for me. Who has the time to set up full crypto protocols when just noodling around?
  - Bnjoroge 2mo ago
    why not use localhost which most browsers have no issues validating? .dev being on HSTS is a positive imo
codegeek 2mo ago
.ai is the new .io but nothing will beat .com. Even Paul Graham has said that.
- nadis 2mo ago
  Lest we forget, the PG essay: https://paulgraham.com/name.html https://paulgraham.com/name.html
  - closetheloopdev 2mo ago
    While reading the essay, I could not stop thinking about the literal "X" company which was formerly known as Twitter :D. It's like X is no longer a variable but a constant.
thm 2mo ago
Anything other than a .com for a commercial site screams gimmick and immediately strips away most of its credibility. Go .com or go home.
- jeffyaw 2mo ago
  this sounds like you're stuck in 2010.
  - gumby 2mo ago
    Nope: it surprised me too, but we did a small survey and unless you’re a nerd, anything not ending in either com or your own nation’s TLD structure is considered dodgy and/or hard to type (.co being a notorious case — people type .com instead). This is mitigated slightly by the fact that people don’t use URIs much any more and even if they do they usually type something into a search bar or chat bot which DWIMs what they typed anyway.
    - brycewray 2mo ago
      Fictitious company names and URLs follow... I once worked for a U.S.-based company called Doe Products, Inc., which it commonly abbreviated as "DPI." When the web started becoming relevant, DPI hadn't managed to get either doe.com or dpi.com so, instead, it got dpi-doeprducts.com. All of this happened before I arrived and began handling DPI's website-/domains-related stuff. I always chafed at that unwieldy URL, especially due to its often-problematic hyphen, so I was happy when we did manage to get doe.us. However, the execs soon quashed that satisfaction when they told me, no, we can't use that URL because people will think they have to type "doe.us.com" (!?!); and I never managed to convince them otherwise.
      - gumby 2mo ago
        Indeed, the standard domain I use for my mail is family-name.org. And so many people do try familyname.org.com that when I have to give my mail address over the phone or in a shop I just say familyname.com
Cider9986 2mo ago
.st is cool because they allow US-legal content and it's pretty cheap. I don't think it will be popular with companies but I like it for personal sites.
- ButlerianJihad 2mo ago
  Oh, they allow US-legal content, do they? Can you name some domains that do not? What makes "US-legal content" particularly cool to you?
  - Cider9986 2mo ago
    >Oh, they allow US-legal content, do they? I've heard this, yes. >Can you name some domains that do not? .md disallows pornographic content. I assume many other tlds would take you offline at government request for content against their government. Or just for any inconvenience to themselves >What makes "US-legal content" particularly cool to you? This resonates: >>knowing content far worse than I'd ever be willing to host is allowed, provides me a certain level of ease. https://web.archive.org/web/20260722120624/https://crippled.media/article/free-speech-vps-providers-put-to-the-test https://web.archive.org/web/20260722120624/https://crippled....
tosh 2mo ago
.com is evergreen but it's more and more difficult to get good .com names I wouldn't call this 'abandoning .com' though it's basically still .com dominated with a good chunk .ai and I guess the ones with good .com are keeping the .com
CodesInChaos 2mo ago
Which gTLDs are reliable besides the classics (com, net, org,...)? By that I mean that the TLD owner won't screw you over a few years from now, for example by raising prices? I kind of like the idea to use .com for the marketing site, and .app for the actual web-app.
jdw64 2mo ago
.com — in RFC 920, it originally meant 'commercial.' But come to think of it, a lot of recent startups seem to be selling things that aren't really commercial at all. So maybe they're actually heading in the right direction.
cma 2mo ago
"A recent YC startup spent 250k on a domain. I was slightly shocked. But when I asked how much they raised after YC, the answer was 6.5m. So 1/26 of their round. This is the time we live in; one shocking number counterbalances the other." https://x.com/paulg/status/2083628660708561075 https://x.com/paulg/status/2083628660708561075 Was that a .xyz?
mtxeat 2mo ago
[flagged]
openrockets 2mo ago
[dead]

39 points by oyster143 2mo ago

Grombobulous 2mo ago

If you take .ai out of it, .com is still dominant.

mojuba 2mo ago
Exactly, and nothing will ever match the "prestige" of .com .ai is also kind of cool right now but it will probably lose its appeal after some years when everything will become AI and the world will get tired of the term. But .com is still at the top of the food chain. If you can survive for a few years, raise your series A/B, you will likely have enough money to acquire your sexy single-word .com name.
- charlieyu1 2mo ago
  Just found out the great ol’ command.com is taken by somebody random
  - dhosek 2mo ago
    Many of the “good” simple names were grabbed by folks when registration was free in th 90s. I’m still annoyed that thanks to a missed payment, I lost quixote.com.
ButlerianJihad 2mo ago
These vanity ccTLDs are crazy to me. ".ai" is a fake gTLD. I bet that many users and possibly even some admins do not understand that it belongs to a tiny island nation. For years, Twitter used ".ly" and it was not widely known that this belonged, ultimately, to Libya. The other ccTLDs, such as .io and .co, have certain "nerd cachet" and people think the occupants are cool, until the rug is pulled and they need to reckon with the fact that all registrants were actually cybersquatters and victims of rampant capitalism. My advice to any startup that can't get a .com, is to find a legitimate gTLD that you can occupy. Even ".us" is available to anyone in the USA. I do not understand the shame, or reluctance, to occupy space in ".us". Why is it so rare? Do you hate America? Seriously, do you hate her so much, you can't live here with her in cyberspace? If you choose a ccTLD and you become attached to it, or your customers become attached to it, or your software is attached to it, someday you will need to face the music when Genovia is invaded, or transfers its sovereignty to someone who wants to enforce Genovian supremacy on the Internet.

cakbeslik 2mo ago

I never thought domains are actually uper important for startups. .com was always cool, then ther was an .io madness, never liked it, still go with .com or .co

rvz 2mo ago

At the end of the day, .com will still remain the most valuable and all startups will grow up into buying a .com

benatkin 2mo ago
Counter-example: Alphabet doesn't have alphabet.com
- SJMG 2mo ago
  They have abc.xyz
- rvz 2mo ago
  Who ever has alphabet.com will be able to sell it for 7 figures anyway, which is the point.
  - ggcr 2mo ago
    TIL that alphabet.com belongs to BMW group
- philipwhiuk 2mo ago
  Counter-counter point: It's not really used in branding either by any of the child companies. So they don't need it.
- CodesInChaos 2mo ago
  They have google.com, which is the brand they use towards customers. The Alphabet brand is little more than a stock ticker.
- newleaf 2mo ago
  They use abc.xyz though, which is fun at least.

FlamingMoe 2mo ago

They will certainly buy the .com once they reach a certain level of stability.

andriy_koval 2mo ago
it will be much more expensive by then.

vlucas 2mo ago

> YC startups are abandoning .com They are not "abandoning" .com domains. They are just really hard to find available or cheap enough to buy, so they launch with something else instead! .com will always be king

manueltgomes 2mo ago
Bingo. either you bough a .com a while ago or you have to pay a lot. A while ago we had the .ly domains. Now .ai. Things change depending on "fashion" if you can call it that.
- DanielHB 2mo ago
  Oh god my company just switched to .io and that was a huge PITA. I hope we don't go .ai...
  - robin_reala 2mo ago
    You just switched to .io knowing that it might be decommissioned in the not-too-distant future?
    - computomatic 2mo ago
      Perhaps they finally finished their migration off .su
    - applfanboysbgon 2mo ago
      It would shock me if that domain were actually allowed to be killed off by pure bureaucracy. I would like to believe that at some point bureaucracy must give way to concerns for the humans it serves, and if nothing else there is enough money involved with the industry that uses it that they'll probably be able to lobby effectively, one way or another.
    - DanielHB 2mo ago
      wait what? I know nothing about this.

the__alchemist 2mo ago

Is non .com/.org, and hyphens still haram? I registered a new domain last week; I went with non-hyphenated .com. More verbose than ideal, but I chose based on my previous understanding. I remember .ly was a thing for a while, then the tech companies would do *ly.com instead.

CollinEMac 2mo ago

I thought .dev and .app would be more popular actually. The rapid increase in .ai makes sense though.

405126121 2mo ago
From personal experience .dev is a little weird. For one thing its on the HSTS preload list, enforcing https. You cannot make a http://... request to a .dev domain from most browsers. I found this out the hard way after trying to use .dev for... development.
- CodesInChaos 2mo ago
  I understand using http on localhost and in some cases local domains accessible within the LAN. But I don't see much point in using http for public domains, especially since browsers apply many restrictions to insecure origins (http://*.localhost http://*.localhost is considered secure).
- xhkkffbf 2mo ago
  That's a deal breaker for me. Who has the time to set up full crypto protocols when just noodling around?
- Bnjoroge 2mo ago
  why not use localhost which most browsers have no issues validating? .dev being on HSTS is a positive imo

codegeek 2mo ago

.ai is the new .io but nothing will beat .com. Even Paul Graham has said that.

nadis 2mo ago
Lest we forget, the PG essay: https://paulgraham.com/name.html https://paulgraham.com/name.html
- closetheloopdev 2mo ago
  While reading the essay, I could not stop thinking about the literal "X" company which was formerly known as Twitter :D. It's like X is no longer a variable but a constant.

thm 2mo ago

Anything other than a .com for a commercial site screams gimmick and immediately strips away most of its credibility. Go .com or go home.

jeffyaw 2mo ago
this sounds like you're stuck in 2010.
- gumby 2mo ago
  Nope: it surprised me too, but we did a small survey and unless you’re a nerd, anything not ending in either com or your own nation’s TLD structure is considered dodgy and/or hard to type (.co being a notorious case — people type .com instead). This is mitigated slightly by the fact that people don’t use URIs much any more and even if they do they usually type something into a search bar or chat bot which DWIMs what they typed anyway.
  - brycewray 2mo ago
    Fictitious company names and URLs follow... I once worked for a U.S.-based company called Doe Products, Inc., which it commonly abbreviated as "DPI." When the web started becoming relevant, DPI hadn't managed to get either doe.com or dpi.com so, instead, it got dpi-doeprducts.com. All of this happened before I arrived and began handling DPI's website-/domains-related stuff. I always chafed at that unwieldy URL, especially due to its often-problematic hyphen, so I was happy when we did manage to get doe.us. However, the execs soon quashed that satisfaction when they told me, no, we can't use that URL because people will think they have to type "doe.us.com" (!?!); and I never managed to convince them otherwise.
    - gumby 2mo ago
      Indeed, the standard domain I use for my mail is family-name.org. And so many people do try familyname.org.com that when I have to give my mail address over the phone or in a shop I just say familyname.com

Cider9986 2mo ago

.st is cool because they allow US-legal content and it's pretty cheap. I don't think it will be popular with companies but I like it for personal sites.

ButlerianJihad 2mo ago
Oh, they allow US-legal content, do they? Can you name some domains that do not? What makes "US-legal content" particularly cool to you?
- Cider9986 2mo ago
  >Oh, they allow US-legal content, do they? I've heard this, yes. >Can you name some domains that do not? .md disallows pornographic content. I assume many other tlds would take you offline at government request for content against their government. Or just for any inconvenience to themselves >What makes "US-legal content" particularly cool to you? This resonates: >>knowing content far worse than I'd ever be willing to host is allowed, provides me a certain level of ease. https://web.archive.org/web/20260722120624/https://crippled.media/article/free-speech-vps-providers-put-to-the-test https://web.archive.org/web/20260722120624/https://crippled....

tosh 2mo ago

.com is evergreen but it's more and more difficult to get good .com names I wouldn't call this 'abandoning .com' though it's basically still .com dominated with a good chunk .ai and I guess the ones with good .com are keeping the .com

CodesInChaos 2mo ago

Which gTLDs are reliable besides the classics (com, net, org,...)? By that I mean that the TLD owner won't screw you over a few years from now, for example by raising prices? I kind of like the idea to use .com for the marketing site, and .app for the actual web-app.

jdw64 2mo ago

.com — in RFC 920, it originally meant 'commercial.' But come to think of it, a lot of recent startups seem to be selling things that aren't really commercial at all. So maybe they're actually heading in the right direction.

cma 2mo ago

"A recent YC startup spent 250k on a domain. I was slightly shocked. But when I asked how much they raised after YC, the answer was 6.5m. So 1/26 of their round. This is the time we live in; one shocking number counterbalances the other." https://x.com/paulg/status/2083628660708561075 https://x.com/paulg/status/2083628660708561075 Was that a .xyz?

mtxeat 2mo ago

[flagged]

openrockets 2mo ago

[dead]