I see these prices as a clear sign that the current DNS system needs to be replaced. It's ridiculous. They are driven up by "scarcity," but there isn't any real deficit. Names are just letters and numbers, and there is infinite number of combinations, there is virrually infinite number of relatively short combinations.
The biggest problem, as I see it, is that there are only a few TLDs, none of them are very meaningful, so it all effectively converges into a single namespace.
If there were TLDs like .games, .mag (magazine), .press, .news, .comp and so on, no single domain would hold so much "value".
For companies, you could have a reserved .corp TLD where every entry has to be verified (so only a registered business with matching name can own it). For products, you could have .prod.
They are working on that and I think it's a terrible solution. Here is why: consumer's want life to be easier. Remembering the name of every company and then adding .com is hard enough. Now I have to remember companyname.companyextension? There have been plenty of TLDs launched which all just failed. .biz anyone? .info?
The scarcity isn't artificial, it's the limited amount of recall a consumer has for information.
I don't think it's fair to say that they (ICANN) are doing what I've described above.
ICANN's policy:
- Create close to one new TLD a year.
- Either make it converge to the same logical"namespace" (what's the difference between .biz and .com?) or make the new TLD highly specialized and charge "premium" prices (.mobi).
This does not alleviate the "deficit". For example, if you own food.com and someone else buys food.biz, you're in conflict. Solution? Offer lots of money for food.biz. Oh, but there is also food.mobi! You company has a mobile app, right? So you try to buy buy food.mobi as well. The system encourages you to hog the domains.
What I've described:
- Make a large number of TLDs available at the same time.
- Make them describe the type of content the server works with.
This would create a multitude of logical namespaces, which would drive the prices down. If you own food.review and someone else owns food.wholesale, you're not competing for the same name any more. This wouldn't completely remove contention, but it would reduce its intensity.
As for remembering domains, I don't see how adding meaningful TLDs would make it harder. Is food.review really harder to memorize than foodreview.com?
First off, there is a whole debate about launching hundreds of new TLDs going at ICANN. It's pretty much the hottest issue there is. They are trying to do exactly what you're suggesting, a registry free for all.
Second, yes, food.review is harder to remember than foodreview.com. Trillions of dollars have been spent branding .com into consumer's minds worldwide (also local ccTLDs in some country trump .com because of use/adoption). Wait, did I want food.review or food.guide? or was it...? People do get confused by URLs, having the same TLD (.com/or whatever your country uses) makes it easier to remember for average consumers. The biggest thing I think a lot of people here forget is, YOU'RE NOT NORMAL. Average consumers aren't hanging around at HackerNews, a site for the tech elite, and their behavior doesn't match this audience (you).
There's certainly artificial scarcity caused by people buying up domains and then sitting on them and doing nothing. I have a side project I've been working on where I'm blocked in deploying it because I haven't been able to find a good domain name that isn't taken. Now, none of the domains I've thought of are actually being used, but they've mostly been registered for ~10 years by people who apparently have no intention of actually developing them. In a couple cases, they are listed as for-sale, but people are asking tens of thousands of dollars, which I simply can't afford for a side-project in a very niche market.
You're not launching because you can't find a good domain name? Sounds more like an excuse than anything else. I see about a post every month on HN about how someone creatively found a good domain name, but you're here complaining everyone wants 10's of thousands of dollars for them. Hate to say it but average sale price on Sedo (one of largest domain markets) is only around 2000$. Plenty of names to be had at reasonable prices, and plenty of creative ways to find ones available to register.
Yes. I have a full time job which I have no intention of leaving. This is a personal-itch side project that I spend a couple hours a week on, at max, with a really limited potential market. If you want to be constructive, I'd love to have links to some of the posts you're thinking of or suggestions of "creative" ways to find available domain names. That said, even $2000 is more than I want to spend on this.
Hey, if you aren't too paranoid about it, send me an email with some details of what kind of name you need, what niche you're targeting, etc.. I've been pretty good at brainstorming up good domain names for friends' projects over the years that aren't registered yet. No promise I'd come up with something for you, but if I have a few minutes to procrastinate I can give it a shot.
It's getting harder, certainly, but sometimes you luck out.
The biggest problem, as I see it, is that there are only a few TLDs, none of them are very meaningful, so it all effectively converges into a single namespace.
If there were TLDs like .games, .mag (magazine), .press, .news, .comp and so on, no single domain would hold so much "value".
For companies, you could have a reserved .corp TLD where every entry has to be verified (so only a registered business with matching name can own it). For products, you could have .prod.