Live data from Hacker News

How many .com domain names are unused?

singaporedatacompany.com

81–90 of 213 posts

Re: How many .com domain names are unused?

#81
post #52

I'm not really well informed about the politics of DNS at the top, but I've always had the impression ICANN has been grossly negligent / corrupted over the last twenty years. At the end of the day there is profound capital interest in making name records unfair and noncompetitive in order to rent seek fortunes off the Internet and I see no indication ICANN is anything but compromised by those interests in the way the…

I've always wondered if they could somehow price domains logorithmically. First domain is cheap and then cost goes up x% per additional domain. Stop people holding swaths of domains at each gTLD level. Would people end up just having a bunch of shelf corps...

It costs $360 to incorporate at minimum, at least here in Ontario, so that would still be substantially more expensive than it is currently.

The CIRA (Canadian Internet Registration Authority) at least, probably others, used to give away domains for free but stopped the practise due to squatting.

Re: How many .com domain names are unused?

#82

I'm surprised that such a large percentage of domains are registered with GoDaddy. What leads people to pick them? They're such a shitty registrar, every time I have to deal with them it's awful.

Another comment in this thread claims GoDaddy has a history of speculatively registering domains people search for but don't purchase in the hopes of extorting them later. Perhaps this practice explains the discrepancy.

Re: How many .com domain names are unused?

#84
post #52

I'm not really well informed about the politics of DNS at the top, but I've always had the impression ICANN has been grossly negligent / corrupted over the last twenty years. At the end of the day there is profound capital interest in making name records unfair and noncompetitive in order to rent seek fortunes off the Internet and I see no indication ICANN is anything but compromised by those interests in the way the…

I wish there was a system where each individual is entitled to a few domain names for no cost on their local cctld. That way real users get the domains they want and hoarders have to pay.

Re: How many .com domain names are unused?

#85
post #52

I'm not really well informed about the politics of DNS at the top, but I've always had the impression ICANN has been grossly negligent / corrupted over the last twenty years. At the end of the day there is profound capital interest in making name records unfair and noncompetitive in order to rent seek fortunes off the Internet and I see no indication ICANN is anything but compromised by those interests in the way the…

I agree that ICANN is either corrupt or useless, but you still have the problem of scarcity to address. Domain names are important assets for businesses, and ‘good’ ones are going to be in high demand. Squatters add essentially no value to the system, but there’s no fair way to determine who gets a domain name that multiple parties want, aside from letting the market take care of it. This is a flaw in the system itse…

Domains already require your real life info. Just give something like 5 free domain names per person and tie it to their ID.

There exists more than enough useful domains for everyone its just most go unused

Re: How many .com domain names are unused?

#86
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that ICANN is either corrupt or useless, but you still have the problem of scarcity to address. Domain names are important assets for businesses, and ‘good’ ones are going to be in high demand. Squatters add essentially no value to the system, but there’s no fair way to determine who gets a domain name that multiple parties want, aside from letting the market take care of it. This is a flaw in the system itse…

Domains already require your real life info. Just give something like 5 free domain names per person and tie it to their ID. There exists more than enough useful domains for everyone its just most go unused

That’s a completely impractical suggestion, that ignores how domain names are actually used. Domain names are used primarily by organisations, not individuals. But even for individuals this wouldn’t work. Vanity domains are still going to be scarce, and the names in demand for organisations are still going to be scarce. And why should there be any limit on the number of domains you can buy? What if I have 6 projects I want to host? What if I own a company and want to buy my name in multiple TLDs to prevent phishing? What if I want to have a different domain for my dev/test/sandbox/prod environments?

“For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”

Re: How many .com domain names are unused?

#87
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you scan for uncorrupt institutions, how the hell do you end up on "governments the world over"?

Because some of us don't believe governments are inherently evil?

Almost no one believes governments are inherently evil, but that doesn’t mean many, or most, aren’t corrupt. How many anarchists are there in your neighborhood?

Re: How many .com domain names are unused?

#89
post #84
post #52

I'm not really well informed about the politics of DNS at the top, but I've always had the impression ICANN has been grossly negligent / corrupted over the last twenty years. At the end of the day there is profound capital interest in making name records unfair and noncompetitive in order to rent seek fortunes off the Internet and I see no indication ICANN is anything but compromised by those interests in the way the…

I wish there was a system where each individual is entitled to a few domain names for no cost on their local cctld. That way real users get the domains they want and hoarders have to pay.

Wait, what??? Think really long and hard about how that would play out. This is a scarce resource, that like many digital items feels cheaper than it really is. I personally think that domain registration should cost more. That would a) stop casual speculation and b ) make those speculators feel like holding on to a domain less appealing. I own way more domain names than I have time to work on and until there is any reason to stop renewing them probably won’t.

Re: How many .com domain names are unused?

#90
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't agree more. Not sure why the task of operating DNS' isn't the domain of governments the world over. It's kind of like operating a post office. Post office's are the ones who have the routing information and capability to route physical messages and packages. They are still operated on a for profit model, but they are also generally very well regulated. Same thing should apply with registrars

When you scan for uncorrupt institutions, how the hell do you end up on "governments the world over"?

I've never understood why governments (or labor unions) default to "corrupt" and private firms default to "virtuous".
Post reply on HN