[HN Gopher] A Hand Wavy Defense of Domaining
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A Hand Wavy Defense of Domaining
Author : floverfelt
Score : 9 points
Date : 2023-07-03 18:10 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (floverfelt.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (floverfelt.org)
| dogleash wrote:
| >I know HackerNews thinks gail.com is really clever/cool, but
| imagine if every single domain was like this.
|
| Most domains already are. If it's not one lucky Gail, it's a
| random sub-sub-brand of a corporate behemoth who got there first,
| and all the content served from the domain amounts to nothing
| more than an advertisement flyer (or a 302 to the parent
| company). In the grand scheme of things, Gail's domain is
| probably the preferable allocation.
|
| But these conversations are boring. I don't think there's any
| method for good allocation of the domain space. And anyone who
| defines commercial activity as a proxy for measuring good use of
| a domain has already decided the allocation scheme they prefer.
| floverfelt wrote:
| What's the alternative if not based on commercial activity?
| Lottery?
| dogleash wrote:
| Not what I'm saying. There's two separate ideas in that
| paragraph. 1) allocation strategy and 2) measuring success of
| an allocation strategy.
|
| Our first-come with modest renewal + transferable + UDRP is a
| strategy. Complaining that someone ought not to have a
| certain domain based on their use is based, at least
| implicitly, on a measurement.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| Whenever you register a domain you should be asked what you would
| sell it for. That would increase the amount of domains available
| for sale and lower prices. It would also be a good business for
| domain registrars.
| chrisbolt wrote:
| Why wouldn't everyone answer a million dollars?
|
| How does this account for domain value changing over time, as
| you depend on it more?
| c7b wrote:
| A fairly straightforward mechanism to deal with this is to
| make the price that you have to pay proportional to your
| reserve price. It's an established theoretical concept:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harberger_Tax but afaik there
| are no notable real-world implementations so far. I'm not
| deeply familiar with it btw, and not advocating for or
| against it, just fyi
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| Because then no one would buy it.
| kneebonian wrote:
| Nah I get "domain brokers" reaching out to me sometimes for
| selling domains that I'm just sitting on and when they ask I
| usually tell em I'll sell it for $300,000 because I have no
| intention of selling them.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I don't follow. Why would being asked/answering this question
| result in that?
| hakfoo wrote:
| I think it needs to be tied to a consequence for it to all
| fit together. The stated price would be effectively a binding
| offer to sell at any time.
|
| It reminds me of the "24 Hours of Lemons" joke racing series.
| The rules require participants to send in a car worth less
| than $500. To enforce this, the operators reserve the right
| to buy any participating vehicle for $501. If you act in bad
| faith and under-price your entry, you get it bought out from
| under you.
|
| The problem is that works well for enforcing an upper bound
| on price. You need a different model for enforcing a lower
| bound. Maybe the renewal fees are scaled according to the
| stated price to provide a reason not to claim everything is
| worth millions.
| mike_d wrote:
| I'll pay whatever the "buy it now" price is for your
| personal email domain. Within a few hours I can get
| password resets for all your accounts. Bank accounts I wire
| all your money out, sell off your short Twitter handle,
| scrape data from your other accounts and sell it off to a
| broker.
|
| You've just invented fire sales for people.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I still don't understand how this would result in what the
| commenter says.
|
| I have domain names that I've been using for 20 years or
| so. They are not for sale, and will never be for sale. If
| I'm forced to put a price on them, that price is binding,
| and I'm not allowed to set it so high that nobody would
| ever pay it, is that not the same thing as forcing me to
| relinquish my domain names? Doesn't that eliminate all of
| the value of a domain name?
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| When you register a domain, you are prompted to put it for
| sale. You don't have to. As the article points out, a lot of
| people register domains for optionality. Maybe one day I'll
| use that for a project. And that optionality isn't worth an
| infinite amount of money.
| mike_d wrote:
| People who don't own $valuable_asset believe that it should be
| regulated and there should be mechanisms in place so that
| everyone has some $valuable_asset.
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