What is Digg?137 Comments
- mikes1, on 08/12/2008, -4/+121Domain squatters are only one level above spammers.
- Gunsotsu, on 08/12/2008, -5/+1211999 called, it wants it get rich quick scheme back.
- inactive, on 08/11/2008, -4/+103Domain vultures
- darkjedi26, on 08/11/2008, -4/+96I think they should all burn a fiery death in hell. Before I even named my business, I did checks online to see if the domain name was available. Screw these vultures.
- CATSCEO2, on 08/12/2008, -5/+71***** the squatters.
- kristofir, on 08/12/2008, -5/+67They're the scum of the web.
I'm a web designer and I get pissed when I find out a domain is being used for the sole purpose of trading. I wonder what Vint Cerf, Sir Tim Berners-Lee and the other fathers of the internet think of this... - stonebone4, on 08/12/2008, -3/+50Yes, let's please give these scumbags more publicity so more people will think that it can be profitable and a good investment just like "house flipping."
Appropriate, since squatting on domains is as respectable as doubling the price of a house because you put in some new linoleum. - Kallius, on 08/12/2008, -4/+41It is the same sort of mentality that makes people do things like buying up all the available Wii's when they first came out so they can sell them on eBay for double or triple the price because you can no longer buy them at the store. I remember quite a few people here on Digg having no problem with that sort of behavior, so I imagine they wouldn't have any problems with this sort of thing either. Oil speculators who trade amongst themselves dozens of times before it gets in the hands of the actual user, are of the same ilk.
If you engage in trade for the sole purpose of driving up the price for the end user (hence making obscene profits), you are nothing but a parasite in the global economy. - ha3er0, on 06/16/2009, -5/+37Forbes.com - designing ugly website since 1990.
- RizzoFrank, on 08/12/2008, -7/+37$620 is a damn good deal for a 3 letter domain.
- joshzam, on 08/12/2008, -2/+31This seems very similar to how foreign investors came in and bought every available property in my neighborhood. These rich "squatters" are just sitting on these homes waiting for a big-buck turn-around and they couldn't care less about the family that can't afford a home.
- jellygraph, on 08/12/2008, -10/+34Domain squatters should be shot.
- scabbers, on 08/12/2008, -4/+24And yet, they're still slightly less repellent than the "million dollar webpage" brat.
- deadheir, on 08/12/2008, -6/+25Forbes is encouraging this practice? It's total snake oil. It'd be like encouraging people to buy cars dirt cheap and sit on them until someone inquires about it, and then quoting the person at a 2000% markup. That's not a great opportunity. It's just a dick move.
- tonto69, on 08/12/2008, -3/+21No way could he have bough a 3-letter dot com last year for $620. Maybe five years ago but not in '07.
- d03boy, on 08/12/2008, -2/+18Domains aren't only for websites.
- SoundJudgment, on 08/12/2008, -8/+24Domain-name Squatters: SCUM...OF...THE...EARTH!
- jwolcott, on 08/12/2008, -2/+18They say the next "goldrush" is in .mobi domain names because of the impending growth of the mobile web: http://Why.mobi/faq.php
Some guy registered Sportsbook.mobi for less than $60 and then flipped it for over $129,000: http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2007/ ...
It kind of makes me feel pathetic that I work 60 hours a week and only make about $55,000 a year. :( But I don't believe there is skill involved in domain flipping, I think it's just pure luck...at least that's what I tell myself at night. - theberlindoctor, on 08/12/2008, -19/+35This really should be illegal.
If your not going to build a website, you have no business buying domains. - slaverynin, on 08/12/2008, -3/+18i was actually surprised by this article, i thought this had already went the way of the Dodo.
- DivisibleByZero, on 08/12/2008, -3/+16Sadly, it still works.
- offthewagon, on 08/12/2008, -1/+13Man, I think I really shortchanged myself by trading bigasstitties.com for those magic beans.
- bitt3n, on 08/12/2008, -0/+11oh but that family CAN afford a home. just sign up for my no-money-down just-pay-the-interest mortgage! no job? no credit? no problem!
- AndreiOttawa, on 08/12/2008, -4/+14Here comes another bubble... Now, after reading this, every grandmother will start buying and selling domains.
- itsameericle, on 08/12/2008, -0/+10Side note:
Traditional oil speculators buying AND selling in the futures market of oil is good because it adds liquidity.
Buy and HOLD institutional investors who speculate that the price of oil will continue to go up, create a self fulfulling prophecy that hurts the real economy. They hold it knowing that the price is getting driven up by demand. Of course, such speculation is excessive gambling that is a bubble. The revenge for us little guys is watching the price plummet back down. - jayskulls, on 08/12/2008, -5/+14As a web designer I have to deal with this ALL the time. These people are abusing the system and need to be shut down.
- DarkDragon, on 08/12/2008, -1/+9These people don't buy a domain ever intending to run their little dream site, they do it so that other people who do dream can't unless they cough up.
- Yimyack, on 08/12/2008, -5/+13I think the people that actually PAY the 10 G's for a certain domain name are the numbnuts of the web.
- joshzam, on 08/12/2008, -0/+8House flipping drives up prices and stops people from buying homes. Domain flipping drives up prices and stops people from buying domain names. What part of that analogy don't you understand/agree with?
- inactive, on 08/12/2008, -0/+7The Domain name world is screwed up, Years ago, you would get a domain, if it expired someone else could get it no problem. Enter the new era, if the domain expires another company gets it, If you try to buy it, they notify the original owner , and then you guys can "bid for it" , what a bunch of *****. If you have a domain and decide you don't want it, and you don't renew some other asshat company will buy it, and then send you letters about how they will sell it back to you for 100.00 or something. The domain companies sell you out
- KaivenTor, on 08/12/2008, -2/+9I'm probably going to get Dugg way down for this, but here goes:
How many people in this thread have an extra domain or two or three floating around that they are saving for a random future project or just thought the name was cool? Raise your hand. Anyone who does has very little to complain about when it comes to the principle of "Only getting domains for websites when you need them", anyone who doesn't is pretty naive to think that a market filled with unique names will just be sitting there waiting for them to pick.
Commodities trading is nothing new, the only thing different here is that the names are unique. Like any piece of real estate, you may run into squatters, renters, traders, real estate salesman, and of course, regular homeowners who in this case, look out on the world with a glassy eyed paranoia as they draw the curtains get out the shotgun shells.
Domain trading happens everyday. I'll agree, there are some practices that suck. If you keep an eye on your domains and register with a decent company though, you won't have to worry as much about expired domains. If you let them expire and someone else wants it, then yeah, you may have to do some bidding. I lost a domain that way, but i got over it and picked other domains to use.
Anyone bitching about this business costing them money needs to learn how to be more creative with the branding of their names and sites. To be honest, I don't pity anyone who's site dies because "the domain wasn't good enough." If your site wasn't good enough with a good domain, its not gonna matter if the domain isn't perfect.
If you search for a domain, buy it within 24 hours, keep an eye on your renewals, and be semi-creative with the naming of your sites. Welcome to the Internet. - myhandleondigg, on 08/12/2008, -2/+9I have 2 domains that I let expire because Godaddy cited and swore up and down that they wouldn't re-register them for a year in their tech support e-mail. Guess who owns the domains until 2010?
- Aard88, on 08/12/2008, -0/+6If you do a "check" and dont buy it then in most cases when you come back the name you thought was available is gone. It's happened to me many times in the past...well actually just twice, I learned my lesson.
- senfo, on 08/12/2008, -0/+6I'd say they're far below spammers. I can delete spam and introduce spam filters to help keep my inbox clean. Domain squatters, on the other hand, cost me a ton of money and there's' nothing I can do about them.
I spent days searching for a domain name for a start up company that I'm working on. It seemed like every good name was taken. Of the hundreds of domain names that I tried, I'm estimating that only 5% of them had any real content on them. The other 95% would cost me in upward of $2,000 to buy. It was incredibly frustrating. - hmar2, on 08/12/2008, -2/+7While I agree that it isn't the most respectable way to make money, I don't see how people can compare it to house flipping. No one is going to move their family into a shelter because they can't afford a 3 letter domain. Contemptible? yes. Evil? pretty low on the scale.
- Zman0101, on 08/12/2008, -1/+6The same type of thing happens with real-estate.. how is this different and any worse? free market..
- TheYoshi, on 08/12/2008, -2/+7Yea, definitely getting the government involved in stuff is always the best way to clean up problems.... idiots.
- slapded, on 08/12/2008, -0/+5620 is getting close to most pronounceable 4 letter domains
- HisVaderness, on 08/12/2008, -19/+24Digg.com : a place where liberals who hate capitalism complain on the internet
- saigumi, on 08/12/2008, -1/+6We allow people to do the same thing with oil.
Why not domain names? - xkorbin, on 08/12/2008, -1/+6ICANN does have a policy about a domain holder keeping a certain level of interest in a domain.
- zydeco, on 08/12/2008, -0/+5My guess is that there are a lot of domain squatters sitting on inventory that isn't moving, and they're looking for new suckers. I'd stay the hell away from this business.
- HonestAbe, on 08/12/2008, -4/+8But it's the free market, man! Free market! THE FREE MARKET WILL FIX EVERYTHINFGGG!G!!!
- lornefs, on 08/12/2008, -1/+5You will not see the problem with it until you try and start a business but can't use the really cool name you thought up because some ***** with no skills other than how to use a web browser is sitting on the domain name that you need.
- cyssero, on 04/18/2009, -0/+4I'm pretty sure I remember reading back in 2006 that all dot-coms up to 4 letters had been taken and most 5 letter dot-coms were taken. QSD.com must have been registered years ago, as suggested by http://whois.domaintools.com/qsd.com .
- yesplease151, on 08/12/2008, -0/+4Um, don't house flippers actually take a ***** house and fix it up, then sell it? It's not like they sell the same ***** house for $50,000 more. It at least has nice counter tops.
- diggopolous, on 08/12/2008, -0/+4 I'm too busy working on the Y2K problem that will destroy the earth to
give back any schemes. - Gneisbaard, on 08/12/2008, -0/+4Why create a digg killer?
***** digg users are killing digg as it is. - LiberalKid, on 08/12/2008, -0/+3its no different than buying property and not doing anything with it.
- ParanoydAndroid, on 08/12/2008, -0/+3If you're interested in telling the world of your views online, I own the domain ScumoftheEarth.com, and am willing to sell it to you for a mere 10,000.
-
Show 51 - 100 of 137 discussions
Check out the new & improved 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is