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Domain Sniped on Launch Day

kill-saas.com

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Re: Domain Sniped on Launch Day

#21

Post by electroly »

hnlurker22 wrote: post #11
electroly wrote: post #4

"Sniped" makes it sound like they did something wrong, but they didn't. I reject the idea at the end that there were ethical lines crossed. You need to buy your domain when you name the project, not when you release it. If you don't have the domain then you don't have the name. Buying the domain is naming it. Take the lesson for next time.

You have to admit though that scraping Github for project names and buying the domains is a sleazy way of making money

We have only the OP's word that this is actually what happened, and there's no way they could know that. The author also admits to having leaked their Discord key and accidentally leaving the GitHub repository public; their technical competence is in question here. It almost reads like a creative writing assignment. How would anyone have known he was about to register the domain?

I'm sure this did happen but given the followup post (https://kill-saas.com/posts/from-0-to-5) it seems like the author is mostly playing up the experience as a way to advertise his product. Mentioning the vibe coding, the Discord key, and leaving the GitHub repository public feels a little like this might be clickbait.

Re: Domain Sniped on Launch Day

#22

Post by lucb1e »

johnorourke wrote: post #5

Years ago, this used to happen a lot because registrars could grab a domain for a short period without any cost - so some of them would see you searching for a domain, and hold it, then try to make you buy it at a higher cost. I don't deal with domains any more, but I thought ICANN had put a stop to that practice.

I heard this rumor and to this day don't use purchase pages to search for domains; I query the whois database directly. If the TLD owner is in cahoots with scalpers, they'd see the search query come in no matter what I use, so that seems like the best option and it's super easy from a unix commandline as well (a whois tool is default installed or a click away in most distributions)

Re: Domain Sniped on Launch Day

#23

Post by kortilla »

a1371 wrote: post #14

Cybersquatting is one prime example of value extraction vs value creation. HugeDomain has sat on my obscure family name's .com domain name and wants to sell it to me. Every year their price goes up a thousand dollars. Hot take: We should work towards dethroning .com as the default so that all the people who trade domain names lose all the money they had never earned. I'm also for a more expensive .com base price. Som…

> We should work towards dethroning .com as the default

Be the change you want to see. Why do you want the .com version of your family name?

Re: Domain Sniped on Launch Day

#24

Post by pulkas »

Killsaas.org and killsaas.net are available to buy. Why aren't you getting these domains? Yes, owning the .com is better, but you've already mentioned that the project is a public benefit one. In that case, .org and .net seem pretty appropriate. I'm curious—why is there so little interest in .org and .net domains?

Re: Domain Sniped on Launch Day

#25

Post by LoganDark »

zsoltkacsandi wrote: post #15

There should be some regulatory mechanism for domains if the owner doesn’t use them for something meaningful, they should pay and increased price for it, and/or lose the ownership after a certain amount of time. They way how it currently works is bad for the SaaS/app developers, bad for the content creators, and bad for the users. It is ridiculous that nowadays you cannot buy a good domain name, because someone mass…

> There should be some regulatory mechanism for domains if the owner doesn’t use them for something meaningful, they should pay and increased price for it, and/or lose the ownership after a certain amount of time.

this sounds absolutely terrible for ADHD. it can sometimes take 3-5 years or longer for me to make good on a project.

Re: Domain Sniped on Launch Day

#26

Post by razakel »

zsoltkacsandi wrote: post #15

There should be some regulatory mechanism for domains if the owner doesn’t use them for something meaningful, they should pay and increased price for it, and/or lose the ownership after a certain amount of time. They way how it currently works is bad for the SaaS/app developers, bad for the content creators, and bad for the users. It is ridiculous that nowadays you cannot buy a good domain name, because someone mass…

>There should be some regulatory mechanism for domains if the owner doesn’t use them for something meaningful, they should pay and increased price for it, and/or lose the ownership after a certain amount of time.

There is, they're called "trademarks".

Re: Domain Sniped on Launch Day

#27

Post by mcv »

hnlurker22 wrote: post #11
electroly wrote: post #4

"Sniped" makes it sound like they did something wrong, but they didn't. I reject the idea at the end that there were ethical lines crossed. You need to buy your domain when you name the project, not when you release it. If you don't have the domain then you don't have the name. Buying the domain is naming it. Take the lesson for next time.

You have to admit though that scraping Github for project names and buying the domains is a sleazy way of making money

Definitely sleazy. Not sure if it's a good way to make money. People can just get a different domain name, like OP did. And a small project that's not paying for a closed github repo, is unlikely to shell out extra for their domain name.

For well-funded corporate projects it makes more sense; those cost more to rename, and paying extra for the domain name they want is nothing to them.

Re: Domain Sniped on Launch Day

#28

Post by watermelon0 »

consumer451 wrote: post #12

> I realized my GitHub repository was public, which was not my intention at all before launching the project. I'm sorry, but aren't GitHub repos private by default? edit: see down-thread, but they are private by default in GitHub Desktop, which is what I have used to create new repos for years. However, they are public by default on github.com.

Personal repositories are public by default, and for organizations you can change the default visibility (default one might be private, not sure about that).

Re: Domain Sniped on Launch Day

#29

Post by miyuru »

I usually give nicknames for concepts projects for this reason and others. even the dev subdomain points to the nickname before the domain is purchased.

sightly related, movies productions also have "Working Titles" before release to disguise project.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_title

Re: Domain Sniped on Launch Day

#30

Post by ThePhysicist »

Domain hoarding is really annoying. Recently I noticed superposition.de was available and wanted to register it for a side business, now a domain grabber got it and is reselling it for 27.000 USD... I can't fathom how this is a legal practice. I mean, I get that it is legal but the naming authorities could change their terms of service to disallow such trading. It's a small annoyance of course but I find it tiring how every little aspect that made the Internet great is getting monetized into oblivion.
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