9 ms·

Not for sale

65 points by MrJagil 14y ago

goatforce5 14y ago
http://milk.com/faq http://milk.com/faq is one of my favourite pages on the web, and has been for 15 or so years. Moo!
- cafard 14y ago
  Guess he wants to join the 1%...
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
thehodge 14y ago
reminds me of steam.com
- robotrobot 14y ago
  This guy is crazy if he thinks an organisation with annual /revenues/ of $110M will spend $10M+ on a domain name.
  - guynamedloren 14y ago
    Well its not just any organization... the organization's sole purpose is promotion (or at least that's what I gather from the name, National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Program) - and the internet happens to be a damn good place to promote, especially on a memorable domain like milk.com. And $110M a year revenue over 10 years is $1.1B revenue, and I think milk.com would probably still be relavent and valuable 10 years out. So $10M of $1.1B doesn't seem so bad at all.
    - blowski 14y ago
      Assuming, of course, that their business model predicts that over the course of those 10 years $10M extra profit will be made from having the domain milk.com. I have no idea about the milk business, especially not its promotion. But I would imagine that few people would not spend as much money on milk because this organisation does not own the domain 'milk.com'. It's more likely to be bought by a corporate wanting a pretty memorable domain.
    - AimHere 14y ago
      Perhaps the domain holder is from the Magrathean School of Business Administration, so his strategy is to go into hibernation until his customers can afford the product...
  - bambax 14y ago
    He doesn't say they will, he doesn't even say they should. He's just saying that he's not selling for less, which can be understood as he's not selling, period.
  - delinka 14y ago
    Or maybe he's not interested in selling. But to make him interested in selling, he's got a number that might get his interest. It's a supply and demand thing. He's not supplying, but if you demand at a high enough price, he just might. Maybe. Because he likes his domain.
c_t_montgomery 14y ago
Unrelated: Dan (the guy who owns this domain) is an incredibly brilliant engineer. I had the honor of working with him during my time at Lift (he worked for Obvious at the time). Cool to see his site pop up here.
- Kiro 14y ago
  The maker of Android's VM. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalvik_(software) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalvik_(software)
ck2 14y ago
There have been cases of generic words being UDRP-ed for insignificant use. It all comes down to how neutrual the judges are and if they see their next paycheck coming indirectly from a corporate entity (ie. funding wipo).
- RobAley 14y ago
  Have you got any examples of these?
  - blowski 14y ago
    Deutsche Post was refused a UDRP request on Post.com, Interior Design Group was refused InteriorDesign.com, etc. Successful UDRP requests usually mean the current owner is using the name in bad faith. The usual explanation is if an apple orchard which has been in business for 50 years had bought the domain apple.com, then it would be considered entirely reasonable for them to keep it - even if their business was not called Apple. Whereas if an electronics form founded a few weeks tried to do the same thing, they would lose it. I'm not aware of any outrageously bad decisions in this area. It seems to be quite sensible.
  - ck2 14y ago
    Off the top of my head, madonna (it's in the bible?) but there are probably better ones I cannot remember at this moment. I know there have been some crazy UDRP decisions from WIPO and other arbitrators because their paid judges are very questionable.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
sideproject 14y ago
Have to admit, that's a pretty good domain to hold onto. :)
- hornetblack 14y ago
  He's had it for a while: > Site copyright © 1994–2012 Dan Bornstein, all rights reserved.
- crusso 14y ago
  It's a good domain to sell. Increasing consumer acceptance of domains that end in something other than .com dilutes the value of squatting on one particular domain too long.
jschuur 14y ago
There's 2 ways of looking at this: What's the investment he's put into product he's trying to sell (in this case, none), and what's the value of the product to the person who wants it? Obviously, economics is about what the buyer is willing to pay, but it feels wrong for someone whose only contribution to the property was to register it early on to attempt to sell it for $10 million. He's not going to get that much money for it. Ever. And yet he put up that page, either to satisfy his need to make a public point, or as a very conscious attempt to start negotiations and still manage the volume of requests he might get.
- vasco 14y ago
  >someone whose only contribution to the property was to register it early on Why do you seem to think this has no value? The world is made of other such occurrences being valued immensely.
  - 67726e 14y ago
    Generally the "real-world" instances of someone buying into stock, real-estate, etc. early, they take on a large risk of losing his/her investment. In the case of squatting on a domain, you are depriving someone of the productive use of that domain, while also trying to extort large sums of money simply for the ability to rent it. Of course generally when this happens, it involves a shady company that also seeds the site with loads of sketchy ads.
    - npsimons 14y ago
      What evidence do you have that he's a squatter?
      - 67726e 14y ago
        He says on his website that he will only transfer the lease of a domain, that he is currently leasing, for ten million dollars to an organization that wants it so they can actually use it.
jschuur 14y ago
The title is incorrect. The owner claims the domain is for sale. Just for the right price.
- MrJagil 14y ago
  This is also for the mods, who might wish to change the title: The title is taken from the link near the bottom at http://milk.com/ http://milk.com/ So, it is in a sense the original, correct title. If you really want to know whether the domain is actually for sale or not, ask the owner.
djrobstep 14y ago
Has anybody ever come up with a domain name allocation scheme that's more advanced than first come first served? Surely there's a better way.
- brownbat 14y ago
  "more advanced" depends on what problem you are trying to solve. If you want something that's quick and easy to adjudicate, I don't think you'll find much of an improvement. If your goal was to reduce "producer surplus," you might use an annual auction system for each domain. The expensive domain purchasers could subsidize free domains for everyone else, with enough left over to... do... I dunno, wonderful things, I'm sure. Aside from that, it's not obvious who should own domains where there are competing reasonable claims, certainly no general solution to the problem of "subjective fairness."
- benologist 14y ago
  Why should domains get special treatment? Business names and trademarks are also first come first serve, and if you're too late it's time to think of a new arrangement of words or letters.
  - soult 14y ago
    Starting and running a company costs significantly more money than buying a domain, and a trademark has to be used, not just registered like a domain. Squatting a domain on the other hand requires minimal effort and money, and there is no danger of losing the domain even if it is unused (or parked).
- eitland 14y ago
  Norid used to have a rule that any company could hold on to max 10 .no domains. Of course bigger organizations with multiple legal entities could the get more domains which felt kind of reasonable. Additionally you would need a Norwegian company to get even a single one as well as be prepared to defend your connection to the domain. (Either something related to the company name or a product you are promoting.) This has worked reasonably well so far. Of course the most interesting ones got grabbed pretty early anyway I guess. (say.no is my personal favorite) Maybe interesting: One decision that left me wondering was when Sony was given the domain playstation3.no a few years ago even if the retailer was a know Sony Playstation reseller. Then again I'm no lawyer.
tomelders 14y ago
Why not rent it out?
lepunk 14y ago
color spent "only" $350,000 on color.com so $10 million seems to be bit high for milk.com. On the other hand i totally understand the guy: He doesn't need the money too badly so why would he sell? Also domain prices are only going up so it is a good long term strategy to hold onto it
- uptown 14y ago
  If you're making business decisions based on how Color did things, you may want to reconsider your approach.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- leoedin 14y ago
  > domain prices are only going up so it is a good long term strategy to hold onto it Is there any basis for saying this? With the recent moves by ICANN to allow more TLDs (including corporate ones), surely the value of .com is being diluted? My feeling is that consumers are so used to weird domains at this point that nobody really cares about particular domains. Is having milk.com rather than johnsdairy.com really advantageous to a company? Color seems to have been a disasterous excercise in spending other peoples money from the beginning, so it's probably a poor example for sensible business practice.
  - alistairSH 14y ago
    "My feeling is that consumers are so used to weird domains at this point that nobody really cares about particular domains..." I'd love to see some research indicating this is true. While I certainly am used to "weird domains", I still often default to .com when trying to find things. If I want to look at Ford's current line-up, my first instinct would be to try ford.com. Of course, that fails spectacularly when searching for Nissan cars.
    - tickthokk 14y ago
      Just to add, I think a lot of people would just google "ford" or "nissan" when trying to find info about their cars. Some of us might make assumptions, and if it fails (like expecting cars at nissan.com), your next step would be to google it.
jzwinck 14y ago
This would be a good time for someone in the US to buy it: http://www.boston.com/dailydose/2013/01/15/demand-for-breast-pumps-surge-with-new-coverage-under-health-law/vpKgXHHkQNiu5sgs7Ir9BK/story.html http://www.boston.com/dailydose/2013/01/15/demand-for-breast...
mvkel 14y ago
Two things I love about this domain owner: 1) He tries to expertly avoid having to give a solid number, but then he comes right out and says he'd take 10mm for it. Sweet negotiation skills. 2) The best company he could come up with to buy the domain does just 110mm in revenue, nevermind profits. There are a few billion dollar companies who might bite, but any company making less probably couldnt afford it.
- Kynlyn 14y ago
  Exactly. Anyone who takes a look at revenues in an industry that they know nothing about, then extrapolates that to some measure of profit is being fairly naive. He goes a step further and determines his domain is "worth it" based on his guess at the profits. Of course, he has a great domain name and he is well within his rights to ask whatever he wants for it. But to imply it's affordable without having any factual data to back that up is a bit much.
- martinced 14y ago
  One thing this domain owner loves about you: 1) he owns a very good four-letters dot com while you don't.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - mvkel 14y ago
    Very presumptuous of you, but let's say I didn't: Something is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. I can't imagine milk.com ever selling for over six figures unless some heavily-funded startup is throwing cash around, but that would be a hugely inflated price, not what it's actually worth. So if a guy owns a $10K domain name and I don't, should I feel bad? Should he feel good? There are people out there who own 6-letter domain names worth a heckuva lot more.
- ctdonath 14y ago
  Considering the name is an asset - not a consumable - associated with one of the most popular products in the world, $1m/yr for a decade seems cheap.
mvkel 14y ago
Two things I love about this domain owner: 1) He tries to expertly avoid having to give a solid number, but then he comes right out and says he'd take 10mm for it. Sweet negotiation skills. 2) The best company he could come up with to buy the domain does just 110mm in revenue, nevermind profits. There are a few billion dollar companies who might bite, but any company making less probably couldnt afford it.
mvkel 14y ago
Two things I love about this domain owner: 1) He tries to expertly avoid having to give a solid number, but then he comes right out and says he'd take 10mm for it. Sweet negotiation skills. 2) The best company he could come up with to buy the domain does just 110mm in revenue, nevermind profits. There are a few billion dollar companies who might bite, but any company making less probably couldnt afford it.
JacobAldridge 14y ago
Why not $10 million. As I just said in relation to the Wired / McDonalds post, I wish I'd had the foresight to do this. And if I had, you can bet I'd be milking it for everything I could.
- hornetblack 14y ago
  I see what you did there.
hornetblack 14y ago
It's good to know that there are a no <blink>s on his site.
thoughtcriminal 14y ago
If you read between the lines this guy is saying he wants to sell it and is expecting a lot for it. He has even researched numbers. Now he has a for sale sign up: Milk.com for $10 Mil. Better he just come out and say it.
runewell 14y ago
I understand your point of view. I am trying to sell Gnome.co and Dungeons.co for just a few thousand bucks to no avail yet everyday I see many web-based fantasy games launch on horribly difficult domain names. Sometimes it's just best to keep the domains you like and wait until you have the time to start a project.
- Kiro 14y ago
  I rather take a bad .com name than launching my game on a .co. Sorry.
- jtreminio 14y ago
  I just looked at those domains. They're empty parking spots. You own them and want to sell it for a huge markup. This makes you nothing more than a domain squatter.
tkahnoski 14y ago
I cant help but mention http://www.dairy.com/ http://www.dairy.com/ as a related domain put to legitimate use.
smallegan 14y ago
I bet if he was offered $5,000,000 cash he'd take it.
- smspence 14y ago
  I bet he wants $5,000,000 after taxes. Knowing that Uncle Sam will take half of whatever he sells for, he asks for $10,000,000.
martinced 14y ago
You guys don't get it. He has a good job and doesn't care much for money. In other words, he has enough fuck you money to say "fuck you", and that's exactly what he's doing. Wanna own this very cool four-letters dot com? You can't because he's giving you the finger. Well... You could, but you'd have to fork out at least $10 million. At which point he's pretty much still giving you the finger.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- larrys 14y ago
  Let me start by saying that I have been doing domains since the 90's and have both bought and sold domains in the hundreds of thousands of dollars multiple times. And have made money doing this. The domains I have purchased have mainly been for others so I have a good idea of the "mentality" of a domain seller. In addition by being an owner I get approached by plenty of people who want to buy a domain that I own. I have seen every single approach out there on the buy side multiple times. As far as "not needing to sell" the only 2 times I ever failed to buy a domain (for a client) was a domain that google owned where I was not able to buy that domain for a client. I even tried to trade them domains that I owned that they might need. And I was talking to the "right" people at google (high up contact referred by a well known person at google.) They carefully considered and then decided they weren't interested and would keep the domain that I needed. I used this strategy because obviously I quickly recognized that money was not going to make the deal (google doesn't need the money) which is why I went the route of a trade and it actually almost worked (where "almost" means they considered making a trade and took some time to ponder and pass around the domains I offered for any projects in the pipeline.) The other time was a domain that was owned by a Fortune 500 non-profit that a chinese buyer wanted. I was the go between. The non-profit didn't want to sell (buyer was willing to pay $50,000 nothing to sneeze at and the domain was not that valuable and well worth it to sell at that price). They buyer came to me because they had bought another domains from me and thought I could help them get this name. I still feel I had an angle to get the domain from them but the client didn't want to pay more money to try that angle. (Bonus points to anyone who can figure out that angle it's not a legal angle by the way.) No matter what this seller tries to feign my belief is there is a weak point that would make him sell for way way less than 10,000,000 which of course is absurd for this domain. There aren't many buyers for this domain at even a $500k value. He may say he does not need the money but more than likely he is what I call the "lottery ticket" mentality where he is hoping that some big fish comes along and buys the domain for millions. While that could happen and he could be proven correct I don't think that will happen based on my 17 years of experience doing this. The other thing is he is trying to hard to justify why he won't sell the domain and isn't interested. Shakespear comes to mind. As someone who owns plenty of domains I know exactly how many inquiries someone gets when they own a "good" short domain. Guess what? You don't get that many inquiries to be annoyed when you own 1 or even 10 domains. I could write a book on this obviously but the way to approach (a seller like this) is not to send an email but to dangle a formal offer in front of him with a deadline and see what he says then. Or I might get into a plane and fly out and try to casually meet him to determine what makes him tick or uncover some other info about him that will help me buy the domain (which could be 6 mos. later so the events aren't tied together).
moreo 14y ago
Noone's mentioned the fact that "significant digits" could mean digits after the decimal point.
- sp332 14y ago
  ahem 8 significant digits to the left of the decimal point
startupfounder 14y ago
Moo Money Moo Problems!
logn 14y ago
He should redirect (for free) to an almond or soy milk maker. I think the dairy industry would be more interested. Or perhaps research on the percent of puss in milk. Or PETA. Ok, I guess I'm evil.
danielhughes 14y ago
This is why I'm happy when I see other domain suffixes catching on in the public domain (no pun intended). While I fully support this guy's right to sell this domain for whatever price he can extract and to park it for as long as he wants, it's a waste of a good piece of real estate. It's hard enough as a developer to find a good domain for a project. I hope that one day the public will be so accustomed to using suffixes other than .com that it will no longer be necessary to pay such exorbitant prices in the secondary market.
propelledjeans 14y ago
Moo.

Not for sale

65 points by MrJagil 14y ago

goatforce5 14y ago

http://milk.com/faq http://milk.com/faq is one of my favourite pages on the web, and has been for 15 or so years. Moo!

cafard 14y ago
Guess he wants to join the 1%...
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

thehodge 14y ago

reminds me of steam.com

robotrobot 14y ago
This guy is crazy if he thinks an organisation with annual /revenues/ of $110M will spend $10M+ on a domain name.
- guynamedloren 14y ago
  Well its not just any organization... the organization's sole purpose is promotion (or at least that's what I gather from the name, National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Program) - and the internet happens to be a damn good place to promote, especially on a memorable domain like milk.com. And $110M a year revenue over 10 years is $1.1B revenue, and I think milk.com would probably still be relavent and valuable 10 years out. So $10M of $1.1B doesn't seem so bad at all.
  - blowski 14y ago
    Assuming, of course, that their business model predicts that over the course of those 10 years $10M extra profit will be made from having the domain milk.com. I have no idea about the milk business, especially not its promotion. But I would imagine that few people would not spend as much money on milk because this organisation does not own the domain 'milk.com'. It's more likely to be bought by a corporate wanting a pretty memorable domain.
  - AimHere 14y ago
    Perhaps the domain holder is from the Magrathean School of Business Administration, so his strategy is to go into hibernation until his customers can afford the product...
- bambax 14y ago
  He doesn't say they will, he doesn't even say they should. He's just saying that he's not selling for less, which can be understood as he's not selling, period.
- delinka 14y ago
  Or maybe he's not interested in selling. But to make him interested in selling, he's got a number that might get his interest. It's a supply and demand thing. He's not supplying, but if you demand at a high enough price, he just might. Maybe. Because he likes his domain.

c_t_montgomery 14y ago

Unrelated: Dan (the guy who owns this domain) is an incredibly brilliant engineer. I had the honor of working with him during my time at Lift (he worked for Obvious at the time). Cool to see his site pop up here.

Kiro 14y ago
The maker of Android's VM. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalvik_(software) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalvik_(software)

ck2 14y ago

There have been cases of generic words being UDRP-ed for insignificant use. It all comes down to how neutrual the judges are and if they see their next paycheck coming indirectly from a corporate entity (ie. funding wipo).

RobAley 14y ago
Have you got any examples of these?
- blowski 14y ago
  Deutsche Post was refused a UDRP request on Post.com, Interior Design Group was refused InteriorDesign.com, etc. Successful UDRP requests usually mean the current owner is using the name in bad faith. The usual explanation is if an apple orchard which has been in business for 50 years had bought the domain apple.com, then it would be considered entirely reasonable for them to keep it - even if their business was not called Apple. Whereas if an electronics form founded a few weeks tried to do the same thing, they would lose it. I'm not aware of any outrageously bad decisions in this area. It seems to be quite sensible.
- ck2 14y ago
  Off the top of my head, madonna (it's in the bible?) but there are probably better ones I cannot remember at this moment. I know there have been some crazy UDRP decisions from WIPO and other arbitrators because their paid judges are very questionable.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

sideproject 14y ago

Have to admit, that's a pretty good domain to hold onto. :)

hornetblack 14y ago
He's had it for a while: > Site copyright © 1994–2012 Dan Bornstein, all rights reserved.
crusso 14y ago
It's a good domain to sell. Increasing consumer acceptance of domains that end in something other than .com dilutes the value of squatting on one particular domain too long.

jschuur 14y ago

There's 2 ways of looking at this: What's the investment he's put into product he's trying to sell (in this case, none), and what's the value of the product to the person who wants it? Obviously, economics is about what the buyer is willing to pay, but it feels wrong for someone whose only contribution to the property was to register it early on to attempt to sell it for $10 million. He's not going to get that much money for it. Ever. And yet he put up that page, either to satisfy his need to make a public point, or as a very conscious attempt to start negotiations and still manage the volume of requests he might get.

vasco 14y ago
>someone whose only contribution to the property was to register it early on Why do you seem to think this has no value? The world is made of other such occurrences being valued immensely.
- 67726e 14y ago
  Generally the "real-world" instances of someone buying into stock, real-estate, etc. early, they take on a large risk of losing his/her investment. In the case of squatting on a domain, you are depriving someone of the productive use of that domain, while also trying to extort large sums of money simply for the ability to rent it. Of course generally when this happens, it involves a shady company that also seeds the site with loads of sketchy ads.
  - npsimons 14y ago
    What evidence do you have that he's a squatter?
    - 67726e 14y ago
      He says on his website that he will only transfer the lease of a domain, that he is currently leasing, for ten million dollars to an organization that wants it so they can actually use it.

jschuur 14y ago

The title is incorrect. The owner claims the domain is for sale. Just for the right price.

MrJagil 14y ago
This is also for the mods, who might wish to change the title: The title is taken from the link near the bottom at http://milk.com/ http://milk.com/ So, it is in a sense the original, correct title. If you really want to know whether the domain is actually for sale or not, ask the owner.

djrobstep 14y ago

Has anybody ever come up with a domain name allocation scheme that's more advanced than first come first served? Surely there's a better way.

brownbat 14y ago
"more advanced" depends on what problem you are trying to solve. If you want something that's quick and easy to adjudicate, I don't think you'll find much of an improvement. If your goal was to reduce "producer surplus," you might use an annual auction system for each domain. The expensive domain purchasers could subsidize free domains for everyone else, with enough left over to... do... I dunno, wonderful things, I'm sure. Aside from that, it's not obvious who should own domains where there are competing reasonable claims, certainly no general solution to the problem of "subjective fairness."
benologist 14y ago
Why should domains get special treatment? Business names and trademarks are also first come first serve, and if you're too late it's time to think of a new arrangement of words or letters.
- soult 14y ago
  Starting and running a company costs significantly more money than buying a domain, and a trademark has to be used, not just registered like a domain. Squatting a domain on the other hand requires minimal effort and money, and there is no danger of losing the domain even if it is unused (or parked).
eitland 14y ago
Norid used to have a rule that any company could hold on to max 10 .no domains. Of course bigger organizations with multiple legal entities could the get more domains which felt kind of reasonable. Additionally you would need a Norwegian company to get even a single one as well as be prepared to defend your connection to the domain. (Either something related to the company name or a product you are promoting.) This has worked reasonably well so far. Of course the most interesting ones got grabbed pretty early anyway I guess. (say.no is my personal favorite) Maybe interesting: One decision that left me wondering was when Sony was given the domain playstation3.no a few years ago even if the retailer was a know Sony Playstation reseller. Then again I'm no lawyer.

tomelders 14y ago

Why not rent it out?

lepunk 14y ago

color spent "only" $350,000 on color.com so $10 million seems to be bit high for milk.com. On the other hand i totally understand the guy: He doesn't need the money too badly so why would he sell? Also domain prices are only going up so it is a good long term strategy to hold onto it

uptown 14y ago
If you're making business decisions based on how Color did things, you may want to reconsider your approach.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
leoedin 14y ago
> domain prices are only going up so it is a good long term strategy to hold onto it Is there any basis for saying this? With the recent moves by ICANN to allow more TLDs (including corporate ones), surely the value of .com is being diluted? My feeling is that consumers are so used to weird domains at this point that nobody really cares about particular domains. Is having milk.com rather than johnsdairy.com really advantageous to a company? Color seems to have been a disasterous excercise in spending other peoples money from the beginning, so it's probably a poor example for sensible business practice.
- alistairSH 14y ago
  "My feeling is that consumers are so used to weird domains at this point that nobody really cares about particular domains..." I'd love to see some research indicating this is true. While I certainly am used to "weird domains", I still often default to .com when trying to find things. If I want to look at Ford's current line-up, my first instinct would be to try ford.com. Of course, that fails spectacularly when searching for Nissan cars.
  - tickthokk 14y ago
    Just to add, I think a lot of people would just google "ford" or "nissan" when trying to find info about their cars. Some of us might make assumptions, and if it fails (like expecting cars at nissan.com), your next step would be to google it.

jzwinck 14y ago

This would be a good time for someone in the US to buy it: http://www.boston.com/dailydose/2013/01/15/demand-for-breast-pumps-surge-with-new-coverage-under-health-law/vpKgXHHkQNiu5sgs7Ir9BK/story.html http://www.boston.com/dailydose/2013/01/15/demand-for-breast...

mvkel 14y ago

Two things I love about this domain owner: 1) He tries to expertly avoid having to give a solid number, but then he comes right out and says he'd take 10mm for it. Sweet negotiation skills. 2) The best company he could come up with to buy the domain does just 110mm in revenue, nevermind profits. There are a few billion dollar companies who might bite, but any company making less probably couldnt afford it.

Kynlyn 14y ago
Exactly. Anyone who takes a look at revenues in an industry that they know nothing about, then extrapolates that to some measure of profit is being fairly naive. He goes a step further and determines his domain is "worth it" based on his guess at the profits. Of course, he has a great domain name and he is well within his rights to ask whatever he wants for it. But to imply it's affordable without having any factual data to back that up is a bit much.
martinced 14y ago
One thing this domain owner loves about you: 1) he owns a very good four-letters dot com while you don't.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- mvkel 14y ago
  Very presumptuous of you, but let's say I didn't: Something is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. I can't imagine milk.com ever selling for over six figures unless some heavily-funded startup is throwing cash around, but that would be a hugely inflated price, not what it's actually worth. So if a guy owns a $10K domain name and I don't, should I feel bad? Should he feel good? There are people out there who own 6-letter domain names worth a heckuva lot more.
ctdonath 14y ago
Considering the name is an asset - not a consumable - associated with one of the most popular products in the world, $1m/yr for a decade seems cheap.

mvkel 14y ago

JacobAldridge 14y ago

Why not $10 million. As I just said in relation to the Wired / McDonalds post, I wish I'd had the foresight to do this. And if I had, you can bet I'd be milking it for everything I could.

hornetblack 14y ago
I see what you did there.

hornetblack 14y ago

It's good to know that there are a no <blink>s on his site.

thoughtcriminal 14y ago

If you read between the lines this guy is saying he wants to sell it and is expecting a lot for it. He has even researched numbers. Now he has a for sale sign up: Milk.com for $10 Mil. Better he just come out and say it.

runewell 14y ago

I understand your point of view. I am trying to sell Gnome.co and Dungeons.co for just a few thousand bucks to no avail yet everyday I see many web-based fantasy games launch on horribly difficult domain names. Sometimes it's just best to keep the domains you like and wait until you have the time to start a project.

Kiro 14y ago
I rather take a bad .com name than launching my game on a .co. Sorry.
jtreminio 14y ago
I just looked at those domains. They're empty parking spots. You own them and want to sell it for a huge markup. This makes you nothing more than a domain squatter.

tkahnoski 14y ago

I cant help but mention http://www.dairy.com/ http://www.dairy.com/ as a related domain put to legitimate use.

smallegan 14y ago

I bet if he was offered $5,000,000 cash he'd take it.

smspence 14y ago
I bet he wants $5,000,000 after taxes. Knowing that Uncle Sam will take half of whatever he sells for, he asks for $10,000,000.

martinced 14y ago

You guys don't get it. He has a good job and doesn't care much for money. In other words, he has enough fuck you money to say "fuck you", and that's exactly what he's doing. Wanna own this very cool four-letters dot com? You can't because he's giving you the finger. Well... You could, but you'd have to fork out at least $10 million. At which point he's pretty much still giving you the finger.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
larrys 14y ago
Let me start by saying that I have been doing domains since the 90's and have both bought and sold domains in the hundreds of thousands of dollars multiple times. And have made money doing this. The domains I have purchased have mainly been for others so I have a good idea of the "mentality" of a domain seller. In addition by being an owner I get approached by plenty of people who want to buy a domain that I own. I have seen every single approach out there on the buy side multiple times. As far as "not needing to sell" the only 2 times I ever failed to buy a domain (for a client) was a domain that google owned where I was not able to buy that domain for a client. I even tried to trade them domains that I owned that they might need. And I was talking to the "right" people at google (high up contact referred by a well known person at google.) They carefully considered and then decided they weren't interested and would keep the domain that I needed. I used this strategy because obviously I quickly recognized that money was not going to make the deal (google doesn't need the money) which is why I went the route of a trade and it actually almost worked (where "almost" means they considered making a trade and took some time to ponder and pass around the domains I offered for any projects in the pipeline.) The other time was a domain that was owned by a Fortune 500 non-profit that a chinese buyer wanted. I was the go between. The non-profit didn't want to sell (buyer was willing to pay $50,000 nothing to sneeze at and the domain was not that valuable and well worth it to sell at that price). They buyer came to me because they had bought another domains from me and thought I could help them get this name. I still feel I had an angle to get the domain from them but the client didn't want to pay more money to try that angle. (Bonus points to anyone who can figure out that angle it's not a legal angle by the way.) No matter what this seller tries to feign my belief is there is a weak point that would make him sell for way way less than 10,000,000 which of course is absurd for this domain. There aren't many buyers for this domain at even a $500k value. He may say he does not need the money but more than likely he is what I call the "lottery ticket" mentality where he is hoping that some big fish comes along and buys the domain for millions. While that could happen and he could be proven correct I don't think that will happen based on my 17 years of experience doing this. The other thing is he is trying to hard to justify why he won't sell the domain and isn't interested. Shakespear comes to mind. As someone who owns plenty of domains I know exactly how many inquiries someone gets when they own a "good" short domain. Guess what? You don't get that many inquiries to be annoyed when you own 1 or even 10 domains. I could write a book on this obviously but the way to approach (a seller like this) is not to send an email but to dangle a formal offer in front of him with a deadline and see what he says then. Or I might get into a plane and fly out and try to casually meet him to determine what makes him tick or uncover some other info about him that will help me buy the domain (which could be 6 mos. later so the events aren't tied together).

moreo 14y ago

Noone's mentioned the fact that "significant digits" could mean digits after the decimal point.

sp332 14y ago
ahem 8 significant digits to the left of the decimal point

startupfounder 14y ago

Moo Money Moo Problems!

logn 14y ago

He should redirect (for free) to an almond or soy milk maker. I think the dairy industry would be more interested. Or perhaps research on the percent of puss in milk. Or PETA. Ok, I guess I'm evil.

danielhughes 14y ago

This is why I'm happy when I see other domain suffixes catching on in the public domain (no pun intended). While I fully support this guy's right to sell this domain for whatever price he can extract and to park it for as long as he wants, it's a waste of a good piece of real estate. It's hard enough as a developer to find a good domain for a project. I hope that one day the public will be so accustomed to using suffixes other than .com that it will no longer be necessary to pay such exorbitant prices in the secondary market.

propelledjeans 14y ago

Moo.