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Comment by jschuur | Hacker News Reader

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.

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A thing is worth exactly what another is willing to pay for it. What he paid to acquire it is irrelevant; the fact that another is willing to pay that price is the issue. Since he only gets to sell it once, and he doesn't want to get shorted by discovering the buyer would have paid orders of magnitude more (but would gladly pay pocket change!), he's estimated how much someone will, someday, be willing to pay and he's holding out for that.

Domain names have gone for as much or more. Milk is a huge industry. There's no reason "he's not going to get that much money for it. Ever."

Since he put next to no money into it, keeping it as an amusement (an exercise in F-U money as others have noted), is a suitable payoff for him. Insofar as it may be worth a lot to someone, he's warding off uninteresting offers.

Upshot: it's his, he can do what he wants with it, and he is. Funny how much consternation this is causing.

>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.

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.

What evidence do you have that he's a squatter?

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.

He's not a squatter. He's owned the domain for well over ten years, he has content on it, there are no ads and no parked page. By all criterion it looks like a personal domain. I suspect he only put up the "here's how much it would cost" because so many people kept pestering him with laughably stupid offers ("we'll give you discounts on our dairy products if you give the domain to us!").

He's using the domain, not holding it for ransom. Quite frankly, I don't think the web will be any poorer for having one less corporate media experience, especially from an industry that everyone already knows about. If they want a big glitzy advertising website, I'm sure Google will index it properly, no matter it's domain name. As for the owner of milk.com? He's put actual content up. Useful things. Interesting things. Things that took time to create and curate. This is not the M.O. of some squatter looking to make a quick buck. Especially with the whole "waiting for more than ten years" part.

"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."

Back when many of these domains were acquired the investment was either $70 or $100 (or $0) depending on the year acquired.

Do you think it was so obvious that that $100 investment (for 2 years reg with NSI) was a sure bet? Guess what, it wasn't. It was a gamble or people would have bet everything they had to acquire as many names as they could.

Explain to me why buying a share of stock at $100 and risking $100 is different than thinking a domain might be valuable and risking $100 on that?

And what do you mean "depriving someone of the productive use of that domain"? What if the domain was owned by some small nobody on Main Street who didn't want to sell? Or Warren Buffet? Who do you think is going to determine what the best use of a domain is exactly?

And what do you mean "depriving someone of the productive use of that domain"?

Well, if I have a company that, I don't know, sells milk, well I may just have a use for that domain in promoting my product. Maybe I have some startup that deals in milk. That would be a good domain to have. But unfortunately I cannot use that domain to host my website, or web application. Someone decided to lease that domain for what is likely a measly $20 USD per year, and thinks a reasonable price to transfer that lease to me is about $10.000.000 USD.

Instead this fine gentleman decided to purchase the domain and thinks acting like a child on a playground by going "Nanananana, you can't have it".

"I don't know, sells milk, well I may just have a use for that domain in promoting my product."

So what? I can drive around my neighborhood and somebody might have beat me to the last breakfast sandwich at the Starbucks and they might take one bite and throw it away. The world doesn't work by the fact that you or anyone might have a use for something better than someone else. You pay the money, you buy something, you decide what you want to do with it.

I think what you don't understand is that there is a business model built around buying and selling domains. And there is nothing wrong with doing this even though it upsets many people who just think "it's not fair!".

With your hypothetical company that wants that domain what happens if what you are doing with it (for your "little" store) doesn't match up to some big dairy when they think they should have it. Are you going to just give it to them or would you try to make money? More importantly you seem to assume that "milk.com" would be available right when you want it. The truth is the owner could have sold it years ago to someone for $5,000 that is using it for something and then you wouldn't get it anyway.

I'd like to say that I agree that he, for lack of a better way to put it, is being "a dick". But the truth is that's actually good if you want to buy it because it will scare many people away who could buy the domain in the past who believe his (what I feel is) false bravado.

I think you don't understand my original point. This guy is nothing more than what we both have agreed, a "dick".

"there is nothing wrong with doing this"

Of course in the case where someone has a domain infringing on another's trademark, that is in fact very wrong and can lead to legal problems.

You are wrong. People will pay for names. I registered a domain long ago, over 8 characters and nothing big in SEO (I think it was PR1 or PR2).

Someone contacted me about it. I don't know even what he's going to use it for, but he seems to like the name. I pulled a good 4 figure number out of my head. I never though he'll pay that much.

Indeed, we made the transaction pretty quickly in the same week. I was planning to drop the domain!

You must also think that it is unfair that people win hundreds of millions of dollars by playing the lotto when all they did was invest one or two dollars.

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