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Becoming Remotive.com

blog.remotive.com

41–50 of 74 posts

Re: Becoming Remotive.com

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is wrong with Namecheap?

It's a criminal outfit masquerading as a domain registrar. They go out of their way to protect blackhats using their services, refusing to adhere to their ICANN requirements of blocking users or domains registered through Namecheap that carry out major scale phishing and fraud. So much so that, with blackhats, it's the domain registrar of choice. Stolen credit card? No problem. SMS scams? Sounds good! Do a WHOIS the…

As a non criminal, this is a major selling point for me. I for one do not want to lose my entire business because I offended someone or failed to moderate a comment or whatever. And it’s smart business for them too - stay out of the censorship game as long as you can, because you can never win.

Re: Becoming Remotive.com

#42
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any anecdotal evidence that Namecheap does this?

I'd add my anecdotal evidence that namecheap doesn't do this. I've searched quite a few domains on namecheap and then bought them months later without issue. I have had this issue (although of course it's impossible to know for sure who's registered the domain) with GoDaddy and Gandi.

Second this: recently, a startup of mine let summer domains lapse and bought them back for the same price, when NC could've easily squatted them.

Re: Becoming Remotive.com

#43
post #11

Not wanting to point fingers or start conspiracy theories, but what guarantee is there that GoDaddy didn't squat this domain? They had an employee act as "broker", and it seems there was little information about the original owner revealed. I ask because, years ago, I had a few friends tell me that they searched a domain name on a few registrars, found them available, then upon trying to buy them found that they were…

GoDaddy absolutely squats recent searches. So so many other registrars. It’s been like that for many years now and has been proven time and time again. The only registrar I trust currently is Namecheap. They’re not perfect but they don’t do any major dark patterns.

I'm assuming Google doesn't squat.

Re: Becoming Remotive.com

#45
post #15

It’s just not that hard to come up with a unique name that still has an available .com, I do it regularly for clients and have done for 20 odd years. Yes it’s gotten harder, but it’s still absolutely possible. Even short (sub-10 char) pronounceable names are still available if you just spend some time looking. There’s NO reason to pay 5 figures for a .com unless you can drop that amount of money without even thinking…

Not that hard huh? If you don’t mind me asking what was the last one you came up with?

Re: Becoming Remotive.com

#47
post #35
post #23

I like this a lot. Spending a lot on a domain seems to say a few things about your business - you're big enough to have money to spend, which reassures people that you're not about to disappear; you value the brand enough to 'invest' which gives people confidence that you're in it for the long haul; and you're being intelligent about SEO and domain trust to know that a .com is preferred by people over a .io (outside…

Your first paragraph is vaguely reminiscent of a piece of folklore that I encounter a lot with small town wannabe entrepreneurs. It seems to roughly go like this: "One thing you need to do to make people trust you as a newly started business is to flash money. The more useless the stuff you spend your money on, the richer and therefore more trustworthy it will make you seem." The reality is that you can expect your b…

Whether or not it's the truth is a whole other matter.

It's not just cognitive bias in play. People do research things. In the specific example here of whether or not non-tech people trust gTLDs other than .com, there are insights available, and most of them point to people being more wary of TLDs they're not used to.

[1] eg https://www.semrush.com/blog/new-research-visitors-don-t-tru...

Re: Becoming Remotive.com

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is wrong with Namecheap?

It's a criminal outfit masquerading as a domain registrar. They go out of their way to protect blackhats using their services, refusing to adhere to their ICANN requirements of blocking users or domains registered through Namecheap that carry out major scale phishing and fraud. So much so that, with blackhats, it's the domain registrar of choice. Stolen credit card? No problem. SMS scams? Sounds good! Do a WHOIS the…

> ... It's a criminal outfit ...

Refusing to police does not mean "they go out of their way to protect blackhats", it means they sell domains and know their place.

Re: Becoming Remotive.com

#50
post #47
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first paragraph is vaguely reminiscent of a piece of folklore that I encounter a lot with small town wannabe entrepreneurs. It seems to roughly go like this: "One thing you need to do to make people trust you as a newly started business is to flash money. The more useless the stuff you spend your money on, the richer and therefore more trustworthy it will make you seem." The reality is that you can expect your b…

Whether or not it's the truth is a whole other matter. It's not just cognitive bias in play. People do research things. In the specific example here of whether or not non-tech people trust gTLDs other than .com, there are insights available, and most of them point to people being more wary of TLDs they're not used to. [1] eg https://www.semrush.com/blog/new-research-visitors-don-t-tru...

Yes, it may be genuinely true that a .COM engenders more trust. Just like it may also be genuinely true that a BMW engenders more trust than a VW.

There's a lot of things you can do to try to game your way into trust: Your BMW could be leased. Your .COM might be a totally stupid name that no one wants. You may have a mailing address on Wall Street or in SOMA from a "virtual office" provider. You may have a telephone system that directs callers through 10 levels of operators before putting a call through to you and a hundred role e-mail addresses that all land in your inbox. You can buy an "aged entity" and highlight to people the fact that your company was incorporated 10 years ago, when you really haven't been in business for even just one year. You can put up an "our team" page on your website, and show a dozen faces of people who you're each paying for 5hrs/month on Upwork.

People eventually see through all the crap and will ultimately distrust you for having tried to fool them. The sum total of trust destroyed by trying to game people's perceptions of you will probably outweigh the trust you've successfully managed to game your way into. And in addition to destroying trust, it also destroys money.

Also: It's a zero sum game. If entrepreneurs collectively refused to play it, they would be better off as a group. For example, the trust advantage enjoyed by .COMs would evaporate over time if trustworthy people refuse to pay for that trust-advantage. (They would just use other TLDs that would then become just as trustworthy). The same is true for prestigious locations for business real estate, etc.

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