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Domain Sniped on Launch Day

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Re: Domain Sniped on Launch Day

#31

Post by hnlurker22 »

electroly wrote: post #21
hnlurker22 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

Yeah I'm not with OP either. The write-up is clearly marketing for their site. However buying domains that others might need is not very nice.

Re: Domain Sniped on Launch Day

#32

Post by meindnoch »

Pretty sure what happened is, he searched on Namecheap for the domain a few days before committing to buy. Namecheap and other scummy domain sellers are known to buy domains that their users show interest in by searching. The telltale sign was that the registrar is also Namecheap.

Never use GoDaddy or Namecheap or other scummy providers to check domain availability. Always use the ICANN whois service.

Re: Domain Sniped on Launch Day

#33

Post by meindnoch »

stanislavb wrote: post #18
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.

I had that bad experience recently. I've been putting a lot of work into thinking the details of a new project. A year! Then, I decided to buy the domain, finally, this January. I knew it was free. Only to discover that someone had bought the domain 20 days ago. That felt sore. I had to come up with a new name. That's life. Lesson learned.

You knew it was free because you did a lookup with the registrar's search tool? Scummy domain registrars are known to buy up domains that their users search for if they don't buy it immediately. Always use the ICANN whois tool and nothing else.

Re: Domain Sniped on Launch Day

#34

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: Domain Sniped on Launch Day

#35

Post by ChocolateGod »

kortilla wrote: post #23
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?

.com has become the unofficial "primary" non-geo specific domain name tld, if you own the .com, you own the name effectively on the internet, everything else is usually seen as lower class.

Re: Domain Sniped on Launch Day

#36

Post by consumer451 »

watermelon0 wrote: post #28
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).

Oh wow, I just tested this and found the source of my confusion.

I'm know it's not cool, but I have used GitHub Desktop all the time, for years. In the GitHub Desktop app, my new personal repos are private by default.

However, on the github.com, they are public by default.

That seems a bit weird, and a dangerous place for inconsistency. I certainly prefer the private by default behavior. I would love to know the PM lore about this difference.

Re: Domain Sniped on Launch Day

#37

Post by cyode »

miyuru wrote: post #29

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

Software companies do this too. Never underestimate a marketing department’s ability to come up with a new silly name right before launch of a product you’ve poured quarters of work into.

A good reminder to not bikeshed the codebase keeping up with the latest name for something, as tempting as it is. A note in the README should suffice.

Re: Domain Sniped on Launch Day

#38

Post by zsoltkacsandi »

razakel wrote: post #26
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".

Trademarks only help after you've built something and are recognized as a brand. They don’t help indie developers, small startups, or creators at the starting point who just want to launch a project with a reasonable, memorable domain name. On top of that, pursuing a trademark or legal dispute over a domain isn’t approachable for most people—it’s time-consuming, expensive, and often out of reach for solo devs or small teams.

The current system encourages mass domain hoarding purely for profit, which ends up killing innovation and creativity. Trademarks don’t solve that, and they’re not meant to.

Re: Domain Sniped on Launch Day

#39

Post by zsoltkacsandi »

LoganDark wrote: post #25
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.

I can totally relate to this. But if there won't be the pressure coming from shortage of good domain names, you could register once you finished your project.

Re: Domain Sniped on Launch Day

#40

Post by politelemon »

tuoret wrote: post #8
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.

How is it not unethical to grab a domain you don't need and had no intention of buying until you learned someone else was interested in it? Especially since it usually involves extorting money from the would-be buyer. I fully agree you need to buy the domain as soon as you name your project, and that's where this person went wrong, but that doesn't make domain sniping any more ethical.

Completely agree. GP might be mixing up legal with ethical, which is quite common. The grabber's actions were performed intentionally, in bad faith.
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