Both (lottery tickets, domain names) have working business models. Google it.
Not knowledgeable enough about domain names but I am certain that buying lottery tickets is lose-lose proposition to anyone, by design.
You are wrong. Lotteries are systems, systems are hackable. I bothered to Google one example cause I know many people are ignorant and make assumption without research like you.
Not knowledgeable enough about domain names but I am certain that buying lottery tickets is lose-lose proposition to anyone, by design.
You are wrong. Lotteries are systems, systems are hackable. I bothered to Google one example cause I know many people are ignorant and make assumption without research like you. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128264.900-lottery-w...
When I said lottery I was referring to a fair draw. You cannot beat the math.
Yes, speculating in general is a zero-value-add activity except in that it sometimes makes markets more efficient/liquid. I would argue that domain squatters don't even make the domain market more liquid at all, because ICANN is an extremely-easily-accessible seller, and the squatters rarely provide the service of buying a domain from someone who has improved it/made it popular/etc. But in general, I have little resp…
It's not much, but domain squatters do provide 1 value. By selling the domains closer to their true market value it means when a domain do get bought, it'll be because the domain will be part of a more profitable business. Imagine if when thefacebook.com wanted to purchase "Facebook.com" domain because their business is expanding quickly and profitably. They ask the owner of "Facebook.com" for the domain. One of the…
Heh interesting idea, but I'm pretty sure the kid could be convinced to sell for $5000, probably much less - there aren't many kids out there that would scoff at multiple years' worth of allowance and lawn mowing money just falling in their lap. I think a market composed of people actually using the resource can set fair market pricing without the involvement of speculators. Domain speculators/squatters literally only drive the price of doing real things up.
Surely, it is legal and indeed a hack. But still, not morally correct!
After he sold to NameMedia, of which he still owns a 15 percent stake, Mann had a noncompete that kept him away from the domain game for about four years. Instead, he worked on his many other ventures, such as SEO.com and a nonprofit called Grassroots.org. From grassroots.org: The mission of Grassroots.org is to help charities succeed by providing them with modern technologies and best practices at no cost. I don't k…
Grassroots.org appears to just be away for him to funnel more cash to himself. The charity gives away his SEO services - i.e. donors are just paying for his salary.
That was what jumped out at me as well - I could only think about the $100K that was going into GoDaddy's bank account. ALL the dozens of domains I've moved (and continue to move, sometimes one by one) hardly make a dent when compared to these bulk folks that still use GD. Oh, well, death by a thousand (hundred thousand) blows...
The majority of that $100K doesn't go to GoDaddy. I believe the current cost of a .com from verisign is $7.21 + $0.19 ICANN fee, then transactions fees etc... godaddy probably takes home about $0.50 per domain, so they made maybe $5k off this guy.
Oh, thank goodness (and thanks for the clarification - I hadn't thought it through very well).
Why is it not morally correct? He is just speculating as speculators do in all different industries. And kudos to him - it's technically non-trivial, carries a lot of risk and clearly requires a lot of business acumen to work.
I don't think $10/yr is a lot of risk.
So why don't you go and buy a 1,000 domains? Presumably you'll be confident you'll get at least $10/year on average from them all....