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Comment by woofie11 | Hacker News Reader

Uzi Nissan just died of COVID19. It will be interesting to see if his relatives stick to his principals, and hold onto the web site in memory of him, or make millions and sell to Nissan.

I hope they hold on.

I predict someone will eventually sell, though. Principled people are few and far between.

https://www.autonews.com/automakers-suppliers/uzi-nissan-who...

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Well, selling a website because you don't personally care very much about owning it doesn't necessarily mean someone is unprincipled. Most people don't have a principle of being more attached to their name than millions of dollars. I certainly don't!

The backstory [1] is than Nissan spent years being corporate jackasses to this guy in international legal systems, when he refused to sell.

A few million for something I don't care about? Sure!

A few million foregone to piss off a corporation who wronged a relative and tried to steal what was rightfully his? No question: nope. And I'd dedicate the page to reasons you shouldn't buy a Nissan.

[1] https://jalopnik.com/uzi-nissan-spent-8-years-fighting-the-c...

It kind of paints a dark picture. The family unit used to be like a person who never died. Wealth, ideas, skills, values all would be passed down and developed over time. Now the corporations can outlive us, they can wait. Our families are weaker than the corporations. That scares me.

Many people find corporations more democratic than an aristocracy. I’d rather have AMZN on NASDAQ than have Lord Bezos become a trillionaire.

Good thing we don't have to choose!

Your second sentence, what's the difference?

Isn't he likely going to be the next trillionaire anyway, with or without the title of Lord?

Also is there some magical step once you’re a trillionaire? Surely at this point it doesn’t make a difference anymore exactly how rich the guy is.

Nope. There are classes among the ultrawealthy too:

* Lower-class ultrawealthy have billions on paper, but no liquidity. Think of a founder sitting on a pre-IPO unicorn.

* Jeff Bezos is lower-middle-class ultrawealthy. He has wealth, but he can't use it, since it's locked up in Amazon. If he sold it all, Amazon stock would collapse.

* Bill Gates is middle-class rich. He has "free" wealth which he can do with as he pleases.

* Upper-class wealthy have wealth in political structures (think Saudi princes for a visible example, or low-key formerly noble European families who hold massive amounts of land). Their wealth is now structured so it can survive economic collapses, wars, and so on, and they can command real power through global political influence.

It's really about how much you can use your wealth for power and influence.

Even random is better than divine right, I think.

Having an aristocratic title that passes down is much worse than some rich dude leaving money because that lasts hundreds of years. And gets taxed.

I also disagree with hereditary titles.

But in a practical sense, I also don't think the next generation of Bezo's are going to be anything but obscenely wealthy. And the generation after that. And after that.

While the hereditary title was a bad idea, they also had turnover too.

So I think it is much of a muchness.

Yes, Bezos’ kids will be wealthy and even in 500 years they will be wealthy (look at J&J, Rockefeller, Canegie, etc) but that’s still better than the earldoms and such in the UK where there’s still massive chunks of land centuries later controlled only because of birth. Turnover was based on royal decree, not bankruptcy/ legal transfer/etc

So not saying trillionaires are perfect, just that they have fewer flaws than aristocracy.

That's... a super interesting perspective. I'm super intrigued and think you're onto something.

In my corner of the culture, I suspect a lot of this has to with - to be blunt, and harsh - intergenerational bigotry. There are so, so many that I know who have had to cut out their blood family because of shit treatment and behavior.

Definitely not the only thing tho. I get along great with my family, and we don't have much like this going on - some ideas and values, but it's not like I was raised with a family motto or anything like that.

I don't know enough of the wealthy / super wealthy, and those that I do know I don't think I know well enough, but I get the impression that their families DO actually still do this. The family itself is some form of legal entity, and parents actively invest in their kids in a way that's... different. AFAIK that's mostly just because they actually can - independently wealthy AND independently successful means you don't lose much if you go "unemployed" in order to raise kids.

I say all this not to disparage anything, but to brainstorm things to aim for in my own life...

A few million to let go of a domain name? I'd compromise those principles in a heartbeat and move the site to a different domain.

Depends on how Uzi Nissan’s will/estate is set up, whether the domain has been left to a particular heir or is simply part of the overall estate to be split among heirs — in which case you’d probably need to set up a corporate structure so that heirs can own shares of the company owning the domain. Otherwise liquidation is likely. This is often how long term RE holdings or family businesses get sold.

What would you say is the principle involved for holding on to nissan.com instead of selling it for millions?

Selling it is not inherently bad. Especially since it seems they can use some financial help. There is a GoFundMe page to support his family.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/Uzi-Nissan

What principle? It's just a domain name. They shouldn't be compelled to sell it if they don't want to, but they also shouldn't be compelled to keep it if they don't want to.

Why would the car maker even care about paying top dollar for the domain at this point?

Same reason Tesla bought tesla.com for $11m. Same reason not owning steam.com gives Valve grief.

They also don't even own valve.com

valve.com states that its estimated worth is $500k-$750k so presumably valve just doesn't care to buy it, that amount of money is peanuts to them.

Yeah I don’t think they would buy it. It’d just result in bad press.

"All press is good press."

Remember getfirefox.com?

Can you imagine how many people type nissan.com into their browser? And how niche that press release would be?

> Can you imagine how many people type nissan.com into their browser?

I bet it’s not that many.

When’s the last time you entered a URL in the address bar directly for a website you’d never been to?

I don’t even trust myself to not have an accidental typo so if it’s not a bookmark or copy/paste from an external source, it goes through a search engine.

I think people do it more than you'd guess; especially the case where they have been to the correct Nissan site recently, didn't notice the URL, and then are navigating back quickly.

I have done that within the last few years: I was attempting to install Steam on a new machine, and forgot the address is actually "store.steampowered.com".

My experience/observation has been the opposite. Most users don't even know there is a "location bar" they can put URLs into. The search box/bar is all there is, they will enter a company name and click on the first search result in preference to entering any URL no matter how simple, they don't even know they can enter a URL in a different way than executing a google search for it.

how old was he? cannot find that info anywhere

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