Price increase on .io domains on January 1, 2022 (Renewal: $55.00) • Hacker News Board

Re: Price increase on .io domains on January 1, 2022 (Renewal: $55.00)

#301

Post by donmcronald » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 2:32 PM UTC

rasengan wrote: post #284

donmcronald wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think big tech and entertainment will actively fight against blockchain domains if it comes to it. Their brands are massively squatted on from what I've seen. Here's a single ETH wallet that's squatting on a solid 40 .eth domains with high value trademarks: https://app.ens.domains/address/0x140eF05a724CA161d49ffE8D97... Do you think `microsoft` or `disneyland` or `amazonprime` or `barclays`, etc. are going to be on…

All of the top domains which make up the majority of web traffic were reserved to the domain holders on Handshake [1]. [1] https://dns.live/top.html

That's not a good replacement for actual trademark protections though. They reserved 100k TLDs in a pool of unlimited TLDs and there's no solution to stopping 2nd level domains from infringing.

For example, what happens if the owner of the HNS TLD `techsupport` decides to sell subdomains and sells `microsoft.techsupport`? That's an amazing phishing domain if HNS is part of a mainstream resolver somewhere. How about `stripe.payments` or `disney.movies` or `google.search`?

What do those reserved domains do for me if I'm not in the Alexa top 100k?

Re: Price increase on .io domains on January 1, 2022 (Renewal: $55.00)

#302

Post by AnthonyMouse » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 5:28 PM UTC

ipaddr wrote: post #233

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do we create an incentive model that kills the “parked domain” industry without out pricing people who want to host a legitimate non-commercial personal site? The simplest solution would be to revoke domains with domain parking pages on them. If the domain contains an offer to sell the domain, you lose the domain. That wouldn't solve 100% of the problem, but it would solve 80% of the problem, and that's better…

What problem does this solve? Most domains are sold through exchanges

So prohibit listing domains on exchanges?

It's an offer to sell the domain that causes you to lose it, not where you put it. Putting it on the domain itself just makes it easy to find. But so does putting it on an exchange.

Re: Price increase on .io domains on January 1, 2022 (Renewal: $55.00)

#303

Post by dhosek » Thu, Dec 02, 2021, 10:46 PM UTC

5e92cb50239222b wrote: post #286

gowld wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What non-link navigation needs a domain name? IP addresses work fine, like phone nmbers and street addresses.

Things like cloudflare "host" thousands of sites behind the same IP. Old-school shared hosting providers are doing the same.

Good point. I've got about half a dozen websites that all share the same IP. I've been doing that for over 20 years now.

Re: Price increase on .io domains on January 1, 2022 (Renewal: $55.00)

#304

Post by WhyNotHugo » Fri, Dec 03, 2021, 1:12 PM UTC

Sebb767 wrote: post #282

WhyNotHugo wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you have enough users, you can raise the price and they can't easily flee. For example, I (regrettably) have a .io domain with my own email, and moving away from it would be super painful. I'd have to make sure that I update my email *everywhere* (or risk my accounts getting hijacked), and even reach out to people with whom I communicate very infrequently. TBH, I _should_ do it, but I can image that taking aroun…

> TBH, I _should_ do it, but I can image that taking around a year. And even then, it will probably feel bad to let it expire just because you might have forgotten an account. That's why I still have my very first email. And it's a lot of effort for saving a few bucks a year (at least in the US and the EU, for poorer countries the story might be different). Unfortunately, that's exactly what Ethos is exploiting.

Yeah, it's not purely about the money, but also knowing where it's going.

I might spend that much money on takeout in a week, and it's fine cause the money goes to the kid who biked it over, and the chef who cooked it, etc.

But the same amount of money going to a corp trying to squeeze as much money as possible giving no extra value in return, and depriving the original owners of that revenue... that does tend to make me feel dirtier.

Re: Price increase on .io domains on January 1, 2022 (Renewal: $55.00)

#305

Post by WhyNotHugo » Fri, Dec 03, 2021, 1:15 PM UTC

flashgordon wrote: post #275

WhyNotHugo wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's solved in some [rather left leaning] countries. When you buy land you must put it to use, and if it's unused after X years, it's considered abandoned and it goes up for sale again. TBH, I think it's a solid model -- buying a finite resource like land merely with the intent to deprive others of it and make a profit in the long term is as unethical as it gets. Though completely legal is most places, of course.

But how hard is it really to put a domain to use? Put up a hugo generated page that is even remotely related to the topic and off you go. Worse save a few related pages and reupload to a static site provider. A genuine entity wanting the domain will look to purchase even with "valid looking" content in there no? Surely "put to use" doesnt imply profiting? If it does put up banner ads? I am not saying this is ethical…

You make valid points, and, ultimately, what constitutes a "valid use" and what doesn't falls back on the registrar or the entity in charge. If it's a for-profit, you're gonna have a hard time, but if it's more of a non-profit, or government organisation, you might have better luck.

It's a huge "it depends" to be honest.

FWIW, if someone buys a huge amount of land next to the big city, and puts up some ads, I wouldn't consider that giving it "proper use", and if someone needs to build a house, I'd consider that land abandoned and unused -- but I can understand that opinions (and even laws on the subject) will vary greatly around the world.

The big question is: do you care about allowing people to have access to unused land to buy houses, or do you care about a corporation's right to own everything in sight?

Re: Price increase on .io domains on January 1, 2022 (Renewal: $55.00)

#306

Post by WhyNotHugo » Fri, Dec 03, 2021, 1:17 PM UTC

InitialLastName wrote: post #271

WhyNotHugo wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's solved in some [rather left leaning] countries. When you buy land you must put it to use, and if it's unused after X years, it's considered abandoned and it goes up for sale again. TBH, I think it's a solid model -- buying a finite resource like land merely with the intent to deprive others of it and make a profit in the long term is as unethical as it gets. Though completely legal is most places, of course.

This is effectively the justification that was used to repeatedly confiscate land from the indigenous peoples of the current US: "They aren't building visible improvements on the land in the way that settlers will, so move them off and give it to settlers".

Yeah, the justification is sensible to take land from organisations under your jurisdictions, that are part of your society, not civilizations that were there before you landed from another continent.

But the US has a mentality of "our jurisdiction is infinite", so I'm not surprised they'd do that.

Re: Price increase on .io domains on January 1, 2022 (Renewal: $55.00)

#307

Post by antifa » Sun, Dec 05, 2021, 3:43 PM UTC

snarf21 wrote: post #57

cj wrote: post #15

How do we create an incentive model that kills the “parked domain” industry without out pricing people who want to host a legitimate non-commercial personal site? At first glance I was happy to see the headline because it means it’ll be more expensive for squatters to profit, but then I do sympathize with people using these domains for legitimate non-commercial purposes.

You have to increase the yearly renewal even more (imo). $120/year is only $10 a month. That is two coffees at Starbucks. If that is too expensive for your legitimate non-commercial purpose, then you probably don't really need a domain. Yeah, some squatters may still try the long game but it starts to get cost prohibitive. The hope would be that if it is expensive enough, the squatters may only hold the most likely T…

Your "solution" to squatters would be to make sure normal people can't afford domains at all, the only affect this would have on squatters is that they would be a little bit more picky about their inventory and raise prices to compensate.

Re: Price increase on .io domains on January 1, 2022 (Renewal: $55.00)

#308

Post by antifa » Sun, Dec 05, 2021, 5:42 PM UTC

5e92cb50239222b wrote: post #285

WhyNotHugo wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some countries, if you want to register a domain that's parked, you may appeal to the registrar, and they will take it away from the parker (unless they're legitimately planning to use it). The conditions of use of the domain state that you will give them _some_ use. "Planning to resell it" it is not considered a valid use. It's a public resource after all. As an analogy, imagine someone buys all the housing in to…

Even if this is true, it is very easy to circumvent. Just host a blog with a few copy-pasted articles, a fake classifieds site, or a forum with registration closed, or something like that.

Too complicated, I'd like to start over with a new proposal.

Get rid of bulk discounts on domains, enforce a fee on bulk purchases.

First 15 domains per tax id are available at regular price. Additional domains have fees that escalate with scale.

The companies using automated systems to scalp 100,000+ domains should disappear over night.

This can attempted as an experiment for a new TLD first.

Re: Price increase on .io domains on January 1, 2022 (Renewal: $55.00)

#309

Post by bfriedrichs » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 1:32 AM UTC

donmcronald wrote: post #301

rasengan wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the top domains which make up the majority of web traffic were reserved to the domain holders on Handshake [1]. [1] https://dns.live/top.html

That's not a good replacement for actual trademark protections though. They reserved 100k TLDs in a pool of unlimited TLDs and there's no solution to stopping 2nd level domains from infringing. For example, what happens if the owner of the HNS TLD `techsupport` decides to sell subdomains and sells `microsoft.techsupport`? That's an amazing phishing domain if HNS is part of a mainstream resolver somewhere. How about `…

The phishing issue not an argument against HNS domains. Phishing already exists without handshake domains. With ICANN domains you can also be creative and place misleading domains that harm for a while. I would rather say the ICANN system as it is today is not addressing the problem properly and fast enough. There are plenty of ways to make it faster and more secure working with a decentralized system that is not dependent on the reaction time and judgement of one institution.

If you are today not in the Alexa Top 100k you have plenty of room to find a great domain. And there is a lot of opportunity to get better names. ICANN domains are limited, intentionally made scarce and often blocked and not used. And you need to rent them instead of owning them. What is the added value from renting them?