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More than half of YC startups don't have a dot com

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Re: More than half of YC startups don't have a dot com

#91

Post by dmurray »

908B64B197 wrote: post #85
dmurray wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two-letter TLDs are reserved for countries. IANA has a slightly more generous definition of country than the UN, but they're still not generally available. Definitely a nerd status symbol if you can get your hands on one!

Honestly that was a bad decision and it's time to end it. Nobody uses those for their intended "national country" use. .io and .ai are tech-focused, .tv pretty much only has tv stations or video providers on it and so on.

> Nobody uses those for their intended "national country" use.

Most of them do? I'm sure most .fr or .jp properties are operating in the French or Japanese markets. A handful of them (mostly the ones you list) have become trendy in other niches or provide opportunities for puns.

Re: More than half of YC startups don't have a dot com

#92

Post by remram »

prepend wrote: post #11
AgentK20 wrote: post #4

I think this is honestly less about the notoriety of .com, and more about the lack of affordable and available domains for startups to purchase. Got a five letter named startup? That’ll cost you tens of thousands of dollars, IF you can even get it. Meanwhile there’s hundreds of gTLDs that you can buy a domain on for $10-$30/yr.

Meanwhile my four letter domain, lwei.com, gets no offers and is appraised at like $1000. There’s still stuff available for reasonable prices but it’s just a lot of work so it’s easier to get some random tld.

Appraised by whom? What's a domain's value if no one wants to pay for it?

Re: More than half of YC startups don't have a dot com

#93

Post by cududa »

ren_engineer wrote: post #28
AgentK20 wrote: post #4

I think this is honestly less about the notoriety of .com, and more about the lack of affordable and available domains for startups to purchase. Got a five letter named startup? That’ll cost you tens of thousands of dollars, IF you can even get it. Meanwhile there’s hundreds of gTLDs that you can buy a domain on for $10-$30/yr.

this, .com domains are an ego thing more than anything at this point. Why waste valuable money on a vanity thing rather than trying to fuel growth? I guess in the worst case somebody could try to trick potential customers but otherwise as an early startup you have bigger things to worry about than a domain name

No, it's not ego. Normal non-tech people are untrusting of anything not .com

Re: More than half of YC startups don't have a dot com

#94

Post by Symbiote »

908B64B197 wrote: post #85
dmurray wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two-letter TLDs are reserved for countries. IANA has a slightly more generous definition of country than the UN, but they're still not generally available. Definitely a nerd status symbol if you can get your hands on one!

Honestly that was a bad decision and it's time to end it. Nobody uses those for their intended "national country" use. .io and .ai are tech-focused, .tv pretty much only has tv stations or video providers on it and so on.

Most countries except the USA have their local domain in general usage.

Even the "hacks".

Search "site:.ai Anguilla" for examples. You obviously be little reason to visit websites of Anguillan restaurants, government, telecoms, tourism etc but they exist. Within Anguilla it's a small signal of a local business.

Re: More than half of YC startups don't have a dot com

#95

Post by shanebellone »

htag wrote: post #53
diceduckmonk wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> an asset that will most likely increase in value over time. This is actually a myth. See the changing of hands of sex.com. Also, Domain names are being less important as users stay within apps / content platforms like FB, Instagram and TikTok. Also Google Search and soon ChatGPT.

The future value of domain names aren't certain, but I think they are a fairly safe bet. They are viewed in to email addresses, search results, web address bars, and hyperlinks. I don't think a platform is going to usurp these. Walled gardens have been attempting to do this since AOL keywords.

The domain name system predates the Internet. Just food for thought.

Re: More than half of YC startups don't have a dot com

#96

Post by sideproject »

I'm in the domain industry (created a tool called Newsy - https://www.newsy.co) and this is where the domainers take the opportunistic sales to established companies who can buy their .com domains they've been holding on for so long.

You may not like domain parking industry, but for people who have decent set of .com domain names and many of them generate thousands of dollars through just ad-clicking, it's an absolute no-brainer to continue on with this trade and they will always say "it's an investment" and "it's like real estate".

Re: More than half of YC startups don't have a dot com

#97

Post by DeltaCoast »

sideproject wrote: post #96

I'm in the domain industry (created a tool called Newsy - https://www.newsy.co ) and this is where the domainers take the opportunistic sales to established companies who can buy their .com domains they've been holding on for so long. You may not like domain parking industry, but for people who have decent set of .com domain names and many of them generate thousands of dollars through just ad-clicking, it's an absolu…

Just a heads up, the url you provided doesn't hit a website. Gives me the error "www.newsy.co redirected you too many times" on Chrome.

Re: More than half of YC startups don't have a dot com

#98

Post by trentnix »

seydor wrote: post #89
trentnix wrote: post #39

More than half of YC startups don’t have a dot com for the same reason people aren’t building new homes on Manhattan island - there’s no empty space and buying existing desirable space is unnecessarily expensive.

that happened decades ago. squatting is not a recent thing

It didn’t say it was squatting. Just like property in Manhattan isn’t being squatted on. It’s being used.

Re: More than half of YC startups don't have a dot com

#99

Post by verst »

klabb3 wrote: post #60
htag wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having a dotcom is a signal of the organization's wealth. If your company is worth $3B, and your cash position is good, spending 0.01% of your valuation on a dotcom ($300k) is a no brainer. It might add to your legitimacy and prestige (even if marginally) and it's an asset that will most likely increase in value over time.

> Having a dotcom is a signal of the organization's wealth. The pricing of .com domains is extremely uneven, depending on your name. It could be $20. > legitimacy and prestige Since it’s semantically equivalent to other TLDs, it lies entirely in the eye of the beholder. This non-.com ickiness seems to be an outdated US-centric perspective, never heard of it elsewhere. The rest of the world are used to other TLDs, and…

> This non-.com ickiness seems to be an outdated US-centric perspective, never heard of it elsewhere.

Not exactly true, for example for most German users not having a .de is odd. .com and .net already feel like a stretch for many. Beyond that other TLDs/gTLDs are not really trusted by most from what I can tell.

Re: More than half of YC startups don't have a dot com

#100

Post by croutonwagon »

input_sh wrote: post #69
croutonwagon wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are artificially necessary in some cases. I have a personal .com and a gTLD based domain. THis is mostly to retain control of mailflow (I use workspace but can always move it, and have in the past) The number of services/online forms that wont accept a .email domain is still very high. I would imagine at a business level this would be equally difficult, even if its just for B2B type transactions/relationships.

That is indeed true for gTLDs (I've experienced it with .online), but from my experience never the case for ccTLDs. Maybe .tk that is (or was) handed out for free, but I never had any problem with ccTLDs I've owned (.me, .dj, .sh). So, .com isn't the only silver bullet, and from what I can tell from that chart, only .app and .tech may be somewhat affected.

interesting. Just registered a couple ccTLD's.

I have a .com. But its super long and I dont really like it. Its also the primary domain in workspace since i have had it since gsuite was free but before they closed the free tier registration ~2012.

Now that I'm a paid user (by forced attrition) im looking to honestly just migrate the TLD of the workspace to something less cumbersome to type.

.email is really the primary at this point.

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