7 ms·

The problem is you can't move a domain once you've established it. I'm stuck on byuu.org for life. There's 15 years worth of links to it scattered across the we

by byuu 7y ago

The problem is you can't move a domain once you've established it. I'm stuck on byuu.org for life. There's 15 years worth of links to it scattered across the web that would all go dark. Or more precisely, that would all suddenly point at spam. I could never get most of them updated. Even my subdomain from my previous host from 15 years ago is squatted to this day to serve up advertising. It's even aware of the software that I used to host there. One answer in my view is to remove the maximum length of prepayment for domains. Let us buy a domain for 100 years. Sure, that's $1,000. Maybe throw in a discount. But now we never have to worry about it again, as long as we live. Or at least, as long as the registry lives. It would never be squattable.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
What if a signed version of the content was always accessible, content addressable, in the Internet Archive? Does it matter than what the current namespace is?
- toyg 7y ago
  > in the Internet Archive I would wager that 95% of web users do not even know that IA exists, let alone that they can use it. > Does it matter than what the current namespace is? As long as it's the only thing a browser will consider to retrieve information, yes. Which is why cool URIs don't change.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - markdown 7y ago
    > I would wager that 95% of web users do not even know that IA exist You are far too optimistic. It's probably more like 99.999999%
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - CrazyStat 7y ago
      > 99.999999% That would mean only 80-odd people know about IA, which seems a tad low :P
      - markdown 7y ago
        LOL you're right. 99.9%
      - m_eiman 7y ago
        > 99.999999% That would mean only 80-odd people know about IA, which seems a tad low :P I suppose that means that for most people, 99.9999% of the world's population don't know they exist. Interesting thought. I wonder which living person is known of by the largest percentage, and what that percentage is?
    - dehrmann 7y ago
      Hipsters are going to start measuring themselves in nines of obscurity.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  That's helpful. But branding, let alone domain names, is proof that namespaces matter. And have immense market value.
ehmish 7y ago
I'd be worried that whatever new tld I switched to would just as easily do the same thing (start charging stupid money for it), with a big enough tld at least then you'd have enough critical mass to stage a protest (e.g the .org thing here)
pdimitar 7y ago
There are many examples that I am currently too lazy to point at that clearly prove that "lifetime license" or "lifetime guarantee" are promises that are basically never kept. Your idea would turn into yet another way to extract even more money from customers without actually bringing additional value (or guarantees) to the table. :(
- Andrew_nenakhov 7y ago
  > "lifetime license" or "lifetime guarantee" are promises that are basically never kept. Not in the parachute selling business...
Psyladine 7y ago
Or separate the entity from the address. If you move, the post office forwards correspondence for 6 months and you are free to communicate an updated address to people who send you things and visit you. Whether this should be done and on what level will definitely be interesting. How sure am I that I want my old email address to be telling spammers where I 'live' now?
dangerface 7y ago
If you want a new domain and to keep your backlinks you can 302 the old domain to the new. > One answer in my view is to remove the maximum length of prepayment for domains. Let us buy a domain for 100 years. Makes sense to me but I don't think I have seen anything more than 10 years.
- account42 7y ago
  > If you want a new domain and to keep your backlinks you can 302 the old domain to the new. Which will only work as long as you keep paying for the old domain.
- munk-a 7y ago
  This would actually be a legitimate use of 301 - except 301 is a flawed concept because if it actually worked as designed it'd allow creeping devastation of the URL space. Woops can't use `example.org/index.html` ever again - someone 301'd that to `example.org/index.php`
kerkeslager 7y ago
This is a case where incentives, in the way that HNers use the term "incentives", don't work. The cost of a domain name is supposed to dis-incentivize buying up domain names simply to squat and/or serve ads, but clearly the price isn't high enough to dis-incentivize that. And we can't raise prices, because then it dis-incentivizes legitimate users. The problem is that the cost of domain names is a larger dis-incentive to legitimate users than it is to domain squatters. If a domain is $10 and a squatter sells domains for $100, then they only have to sell 1 in 10 domains to break even, so risk is very low: they don't have to really be overly concerned with only buying domains that will sell. And that's a simplistic model: the reality is that squatters have much more sophisticated valuation models, and have therefore have much higher profit margins, keeping their risk even lower. Sometimes domains sell for tens of thousands of dollars. Meanwhile, the risk is very high for a legitimate user. If you have a company or a nonprofit, you basically have to choose a name that's marketable, memorable, relevant to your business/nonprofit, and unique, on the first try. This can literally make or break a business. And once you have that name, there's basically only one ideal URL for that name: yourbusiness.com or yournonprofit.org. So you have a supply of one and a demand of this might make or break my organization so cost can be pretty much "what is the maximum you can pay?". As such, if the max you can pay isn't enough for the domain squatter to want to sell, you just don't get the domain, and your organization gets a sub-standard web presence. I don't think we can overestimate the impact of this problem. I've worked for a company which owns your-business.com rather than yourbusiness.com (these are examples obviously--it would be unprofessional to give out actual names). Their marketing is very explicit about the dash, and potential customers still end up at the squatted non-dashed domain, which is only getting more expensive as the company becomes more successful. Luckily their value proposition is large enough, and clients sophisticated enough, that the friction of actually getting to the site isn't as large enough barrier to prevent growth. But if your business is a lower-margin business with less sophisticated clients, that would be a big enough barrier to prevent success entirely.

by byuu 7y ago

toomuchtodo 7y ago

What if a signed version of the content was always accessible, content addressable, in the Internet Archive? Does it matter than what the current namespace is?

toyg 7y ago
> in the Internet Archive I would wager that 95% of web users do not even know that IA exists, let alone that they can use it. > Does it matter than what the current namespace is? As long as it's the only thing a browser will consider to retrieve information, yes. Which is why cool URIs don't change.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- markdown 7y ago
  > I would wager that 95% of web users do not even know that IA exist You are far too optimistic. It's probably more like 99.999999%
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - CrazyStat 7y ago
    > 99.999999% That would mean only 80-odd people know about IA, which seems a tad low :P
    - markdown 7y ago
      LOL you're right. 99.9%
    - m_eiman 7y ago
      > 99.999999% That would mean only 80-odd people know about IA, which seems a tad low :P I suppose that means that for most people, 99.9999% of the world's population don't know they exist. Interesting thought. I wonder which living person is known of by the largest percentage, and what that percentage is?
  - dehrmann 7y ago
    Hipsters are going to start measuring themselves in nines of obscurity.
dredmorbius 7y ago
That's helpful. But branding, let alone domain names, is proof that namespaces matter. And have immense market value.

ehmish 7y ago

I'd be worried that whatever new tld I switched to would just as easily do the same thing (start charging stupid money for it), with a big enough tld at least then you'd have enough critical mass to stage a protest (e.g the .org thing here)

pdimitar 7y ago

There are many examples that I am currently too lazy to point at that clearly prove that "lifetime license" or "lifetime guarantee" are promises that are basically never kept. Your idea would turn into yet another way to extract even more money from customers without actually bringing additional value (or guarantees) to the table. :(

Andrew_nenakhov 7y ago
> "lifetime license" or "lifetime guarantee" are promises that are basically never kept. Not in the parachute selling business...

Psyladine 7y ago

Or separate the entity from the address. If you move, the post office forwards correspondence for 6 months and you are free to communicate an updated address to people who send you things and visit you. Whether this should be done and on what level will definitely be interesting. How sure am I that I want my old email address to be telling spammers where I 'live' now?

dangerface 7y ago

If you want a new domain and to keep your backlinks you can 302 the old domain to the new. > One answer in my view is to remove the maximum length of prepayment for domains. Let us buy a domain for 100 years. Makes sense to me but I don't think I have seen anything more than 10 years.

account42 7y ago
> If you want a new domain and to keep your backlinks you can 302 the old domain to the new. Which will only work as long as you keep paying for the old domain.
munk-a 7y ago
This would actually be a legitimate use of 301 - except 301 is a flawed concept because if it actually worked as designed it'd allow creeping devastation of the URL space. Woops can't use `example.org/index.html` ever again - someone 301'd that to `example.org/index.php`

kerkeslager 7y ago

This is a case where incentives, in the way that HNers use the term "incentives", don't work. The cost of a domain name is supposed to dis-incentivize buying up domain names simply to squat and/or serve ads, but clearly the price isn't high enough to dis-incentivize that. And we can't raise prices, because then it dis-incentivizes legitimate users. The problem is that the cost of domain names is a larger dis-incentive to legitimate users than it is to domain squatters. If a domain is $10 and a squatter sells domains for $100, then they only have to sell 1 in 10 domains to break even, so risk is very low: they don't have to really be overly concerned with only buying domains that will sell. And that's a simplistic model: the reality is that squatters have much more sophisticated valuation models, and have therefore have much higher profit margins, keeping their risk even lower. Sometimes domains sell for tens of thousands of dollars. Meanwhile, the risk is very high for a legitimate user. If you have a company or a nonprofit, you basically have to choose a name that's marketable, memorable, relevant to your business/nonprofit, and unique, on the first try. This can literally make or break a business. And once you have that name, there's basically only one ideal URL for that name: yourbusiness.com or yournonprofit.org. So you have a supply of one and a demand of this might make or break my organization so cost can be pretty much "what is the maximum you can pay?". As such, if the max you can pay isn't enough for the domain squatter to want to sell, you just don't get the domain, and your organization gets a sub-standard web presence. I don't think we can overestimate the impact of this problem. I've worked for a company which owns your-business.com rather than yourbusiness.com (these are examples obviously--it would be unprofessional to give out actual names). Their marketing is very explicit about the dash, and potential customers still end up at the squatted non-dashed domain, which is only getting more expensive as the company becomes more successful. Luckily their value proposition is large enough, and clients sophisticated enough, that the friction of actually getting to the site isn't as large enough barrier to prevent growth. But if your business is a lower-margin business with less sophisticated clients, that would be a big enough barrier to prevent success entirely.