Even in 2018 the concept that good domains cost good money is foreign to many in business.
I remember a friend bringing me to a meeting at his startup back in 2015, it was a name brainstorming session. The CEO kept saying “Oh one of those pigs has our first and second choice.” I turned to my friend and asked who are these pigs? He said, “YOU!” I asked what he was talking about? He explained, that not me specifically but a domain investor. The founders of his company referred to domain investors with only one moniker, and that was pigs.
I said well usually it’s squatter, haha.
So today I read a post where a domain investor was called scum and a son of a bitch.
MapleDots relayed the following story on Namepros:
I found myself in a conversation with an irate client yesterday who wanted one of my domains. He accused me of sitting on a domain his business absolutely had to have in order to succeed. In this case it happened to be a two word .com and the potential client was absolutely livid at my 10k asking price.
I did all my usual, explaining to him the cost of print advertising and how easily he could get to 10k and still not have the value similar to this nice domain. I also told him the cost of acquisition could be written off in his advertising fund therefore becoming 100% tax deductible.
I also told the client that he could simply go and register a two word domain in his chosen extension with little to no problems. To this he answered it was impossible because you bastards have registered them all.
I asked him to pick a famous two word website and he picked NationalEnquirer.com as an example of a website. So I said to him if I had a similar business you could find thousands of good combinations without paying more than a reg fee. In fact I told him he could pick .coms and there would be thousands of combos.
ie..
PeoplesEnquirer.com
I said that by simply combining words there are millions of available domains even in the king .com and all he has to do is to be creative and he can save himself 10k
In the end nothing worked and I was called scum and a son of a bitch.
I simply responded….
That may be but I am the son of a bitch that owns your domain and the price just went up to 12k
Millions of good Domains left – No Excuses, if you want the domain pay up or register your own, the choice is yours.
”scum“ is probably one of the nicer things I‘ve been called in the past, so yeah..
Wow. That was intense
When I hear persons call domain investors “scum”, “squatters”, and other choice monikers, I point to Jeff Bezos, who may go down/up as the greatest CEO of all time, and all the domains he owns that are undeveloped, the multiple companies (Walt Disney, Microsoft, Google, and hundreds more) that have domain portfolios and many domains undeveloped, early domain investors who made fortunes and used some these proceeds to launch businesses, donate to medical research….
I don’t agree with the strategy of persons who pounce on domains of the deceased, and the heirs had no idea of the existence of said domains or know how to renew them. But I also understand this has occurred for centuries — homes, properties auctioned off after the demise of the owner(s)
Bezos may go down as the richest, but he’s hardly even in the running for best.
Domain investors *are* scum. You know know what are. At least have the balls to admit it.
There’s no shame in being a bottom feeder once you lose the pretense and quit pretending that you’re an honorable business.
When I owe the one domain you want, either pay up or take a walk. Nobody obliges you to buy, and I’m not selling for peanuts. And there is always to the art of negotiating without insulting anyone.
Some people think the world owes them a great domain name…
Well said
Domain names are Internet Real Estate. The sooner end-users realize that, the better.
He could have at least suggested a payment plan.
Give me what you own because I want it. Otherwise you’re evil.
A: “Who’s the squatter who owns all this undeveloped property in Hawaii? I want it now, as I can build houses on it, rent them out or sell them and provide housing for the local folks.”
B: “That would be Mr. Zuckerberg, sir, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook.”
A: “He should just hand it over to me..”
B: “I don’t think he’ll do that, sir.”
Human nature is very strange. A company wanted their company name in .com . The owner is worth hundreds of millions of $. I said I would accept $15,000 at that time. He told me they would only pay $5,000 which I declined. I said you spent $100,000 on a car, $1,000,000 on a house and YET you do not want to pay more than $5k for the name of the company that provides the money for that car and house. He said I had offended him. Fuck him. The domain is renewed for 10 years and will keep it. He will never ever get it.
Nice. Send him this too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIuYQ_4TcXg
So fitting.
This is the “narrative” Raymond that you were confronted with when you went to try and help this business.
imo, It’s the biggest challenge facing us in the domain business.
It’s purely an emotional based narrative – as such it’s irrational, and illogical. Logic has to be the solution therefore and Godaddy are doing great work on it.
I’m not a domain investor, I’m a software developer, but I turned to selling some domains that I’m not using in order to help fund my next projects. I have to be honest and say that I do feel a bit of guilt about it. But then, I understand the reality of it all when I look for domains I’d like but that aren’t available except at a premium. One is quite pricey, but if I can spare the money for it, I’ll buy it without complaining. It’s pricey for a reason, and if the person who currently has it didn’t have it, someone else would. It wouldn’t just be sitting there, available to register for 10 bucks.
@David M,
You can expiate that guilt by contacting your registrar and deleting all your unused domains today. Or making a pact with Heaven to sell any domain for $10 to anyone who asks to use it.
Some people do renounce all worldly possessions. Those of us who don’t tend to own things we’re not actively using – staplers, books we meant to read but didn’t, shirts (seldom worn) on hangers, leftover Chinese food going bad, bikes, cars, real estate.
Domains really aren’t any different. We can throw them away. We can keep them. We can sell them at the market rate. Or we can give them away, ignoring the market value.
Why guilt? It’s not unusual to have belongings.
You make a good point. I kick myself for some of the domains I just let drop, (since 1996), because I wasn’t using them and knew I probably never would. The main reason I registered domains was for products or website ideas, not for investment purposes, thinking that they could be profitable one day.
Anyway, I’ve hung onto some of the good ones that I’ve received 5 and 6-figure offers for, over the years. We’ll see if I can get over my “guilt” enough to do it. Otherwise, anyone have 10 bucks? They’re yours. 😉
Investors may not be scum, but some of the money-grubbing policies and practices of some companies in the industry are definitely scum. It’s truly sickening.
Bottom line is names are available for anyone to register or invest in. It’s a business. If the public isn’t welcome to invest in an opportunity that’s available to them, then change the rules and prohibit the registration of a name unless it gets developed within a few months.
That wouldn’t work, Tom, because who is going to draw the line between developed and undeveloped? If I put a poem on a domain name, does that make it developed?
This is my domain name,
As you can see for sure,
And now if you will buy it,
No more will I be poor.
I only want ten million,
A trifle for your firm,
Or you can use the .io,
Until you fuckin burn.
Jon,
Love the poem. I would say you’ve developed it.
The widespread hatred of domainers comes, in large part, from the false concept of cybersquatting which was promulgated in the 1990s and which led to the passing of the draconian U.S. Anti-Cybersquatting Protection Act, by which you can be fined $100,000 just for registering a domain which contains a trademark. That may be the greatest infringement of reasonable free speech by any U.S. law.
In my opinion there is no such thing as cybersquatting. The concept was an overreaching of reasonable trademark rights, a power-grab by the large companies which are behind the trademark lobby, which in turn influenced ICANN and politicians.
Yes, a company should be able to sue for damages if a website causes confusion as to the source of goods or services offered or authorship of content – which is the basic concept of trademark rights – but never to seize a domain unless the domain has been stolen.
If Google accidentally deleted Google.com and someone with a backorder picked it up, the domain could not legitimately be used for a search engine but it could be used for an ebook about Google without causing confusion as to the source of goods, services or authorship, as long as the website made it clear and conspicuous that it had no affiliation with the company.
Therefore, the new owner should be able to put any price they want on the domain, in my opinion, as many people would want it and no one, including Google, would pay more than it was worth to them. The free market would determine the sale price.
It pains me to see the domain community, overall, buying into the concept of cybersquatting and trying to distinguish between good domainers, who don’t cybersquat, and bad domainers who do.
Again, having content on a domain which can cause confusion as to who is responsible for that content is a whole other matter. That’s where the policing should be, but it should only require the removal of the offending content and compensation for real damages caused, not forfeiture of the domain unless that is part of a deal or general asset seizure by which a judgment is paid.
This is just my opinion which is open to revision if you can point out something I’m missing.
P.S. My example of a domain being accidentally deleted was not a good one. If you leave a laptop in a restaurant and someone finds it, that doesn’t give them a right to claim it as their property. If a domain goes through the entire expiration process and drops, however, even ICANN recognizes that as a forfeiture of rights to the domain. It may not be nice to demand a high price for a domain which was accidentally dropped (or, on the other hand, you may want to express some displeasure with the former owner), but I don’t think it should be actionable.
You own what I want! You are not doing anything with it. I know you paid for it but only to sell it which seems wrong to me, especially since I have a greater purpose for it. Now you will not give it to me or sell it to me for what I am willing to pay for it. The only conclusion I can arrive at is that you are the scum of the earth and a SOB.
haha.. something like that!
This discussion brings to mind his eminence, Mr. Rick Schwartz.
Rick’s vision and business acumen recognized, in a free market, the value of domain names.
When he started, he certainly had his detractors and dire warnings that the internet would never last
and investing in domain names, a grand waste of time and money.
He, and many others at the right place at the right time capitalized in scooping up the best and shortest names.
It’s a free market, after all, and online digital properties in the form of domain names y the same as physical real estate.
Applying the same sense of “entitlement” to a corner in downtown Manhattan would be laughable.
Imagine it. Receiving an email or telephone call from a real estate investor who believes that your corner, downtown Manhattan tower, is rightfully his and you are scum for not seeing the light and relinquishing the land.
Legitimacy for domain name investors?
Bottom line, I found the name unregistered, I paid good money to register it in my name and I pay good money to renew the name annually.
Free market
i’m not scum, but i’m a filthy pig. i love being a pig
Can you imagine if you received the phone call?
Buyer: “Hello, ___. My name is ____. And I see you own that waterfront property on Biscayne Bay?”
Owner: “That’s right.”
Buyer: “But it’s undeveloped.”
Owner: “Yes, that’s right.”
Buyer: “I want it. I can do something useful with it, rather than holding onto it as just an investment.”
Owner: “You’re welcome to make an offer for the property,”
Buyer: “My offer is zero, you pond scum. I’ll turn that property into 50 story condos and provide housing to thousands, jobs to thousands.”
Owner: “And block the view”
Click
there are plenty of .xyz names available