Hacker News Reader

Comment by jwr | Hacker News Reader

I always had similar thoughts. Domain squatters provide no value to society, just leech on others that actually build things. Luckily, these days there are a lot more TLDs, so one doesn't have to pay the ransom.

I think there should be a subscription fee for domains in certain TLDs (especially .com) — so that there is a real cost to holding domains. If you are using it for a business, you will have no problem paying the subscription, but if you want to squat on hundreds of domains, it will quickly make your costs unsustainable. The current system where it costs next to nothing to hold a domain encourages squatting.

View on HN

>so that there is a real cost to holding domains

I have a domain for my email and a website hosting the handful of things I've put out over the years and my resume. It's a single word on a popular TLD.

Should I be priced out of that domain?

If no: businesses will still squat.

If yes: why the fuck should I care about stopping squatters if I can't even afford an available domain name?

> I think there should be a subscription fee for domains in certain TLDs (especially .com)

I have a few .com's and I pay yearly subscriptions on them. And some domains in other TLDs have "premium" subscription prices which can be 10-100x higher than the normal domain subscription price.

> so that there is a real cost to holding domains. If you are using it for a business, you will have no problem paying the subscription

This sounds like it would make the cost painful, if not prohibitive, for individuals to own domains in those TLDs. Don't get me wrong, squatting is annoying. But I don't think raising the prices is the right fix, since it may end up with the side effect of making domain purchases in some TLDs only available to businesses.

Don't forget that squatters will just rise the prices to cover holding costs. Instead of $10k silly domain starts costing $50k.

Since domain names are globally unique, there is no solution. The number of name consumptions by name consumers is larger than the number of useful names. If multiple parties want to use a name, only one gets it. Your hobby site is treated equally with any other commercial or social venture of any utility or economic size. Even if that size is zero. Free resources get wasted, free non-renewable are interesting to watch.

You and I can both name our daughters “Carla McIntyre”, all uses of their name will be context-sensitive.

On many sites, and for email providers, we need to be scoobydoo45478 because there were other scoobydoos that showed up first. Same is going to happen with domain names. At least a squatter won’t be able to claim copyright on the prefix.

> If you are using it for a business, you will have no problem paying the subscription

When you're building a business, your business' finances are literally your own finances. So in order to start a business (and get a domain for it) you'd already need to be rich enough to be able to pay the substantial fee from your own pocket. That doesn't sound that great.

I participate in an international accelerator program and last week the regular weekly update from one of the African participants was that they need a donation of $35 for their domain and hosting renewal. These are talented guys building a real product.

Your "next to nothing" is not so close to nothing for others.

There is a "subscription fee" already, which is the annual registration fee.

Isn't there a yearly cost to registering domains? That seems like a subscription fee to me.

I think he argues that this cost is too low.

Like digital Landlords.

Not really. There’s a major capital investment in owning a residential property, plus ongoing maintenance, otherwise no one would need to rent. A domain can be had for less than one fancy coffee per year.

Contrarian view: I'd rather negotiate with a "leech" domain parker than some random guy using it for his hobby site that he hasn't updated in 9 years and is impossible to reach.

At least the leech responds to me immediately, will negotiate 100% of the time and will actually sell you the domain.

Meanwhile, you've got the owner (might be previous owner considering the site has been updated now) of "Steam.com" who had a message saying "domain not for sale" on the site for years. [1] Not using it. Not selling it. Just sitting. Now Valve has to use the ugly abomination known as "Steampowered.com".

When I want a squatted domain, I can get it. When I want a domain some random guy owns, he doesn't reply 80% of the time. The other 20% he won't sell.

[1] https://imgur.com/JV0hm

Just because there's nothing on the homepage doesn't mean it isn't being used. I've had a domain name for the last 10 years with no homepage that I'd never sell because me and a few others use it for email only. There's more use for a domain name than simply the webpage.

I visited Steam.com and was met with “Steam.com is reserved for our Future Product” but with a copyright of 1994 to today. That’s a long product development cycle. Are they building the new Duke Nukem Forever?

Just because they've not got an active website doesn't mean they're not using it.

I'm not certain this is necessarily a contrarian view.

If the person is using it for his hobby (keyword using) I don't see how that's any of our business. Either he wants your $10000 or not.

On the other hand, if he is not using it, I'm all for avenues to address this, for example ICANN or local TLD "courts". This would then cover squatting/scalping as well.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com