Thread

Are you seriously defending link farms? Do you use link farms to find information? Do you trust the links on those sites? No you don’t because you’ve learned to avoid them just as you avoid opening email spam.

However, I’ve already agreed that there isn’t a way to determine what is or will be a valid use for a domain. As I’ve said, I think charging more per domain is the best way to free them up.

No, I’m not defending link farms, and I think you know that. I’m saying that the definition of “valid” is ambiguous, and in that particular example, a case could be made that the link farm page provides more value to a particular user than a goldfish site. I’m not saying it’s right, just that there’s an argument to be made.

I don’t think that raising the cost of registration is an appropriate solution. If the price is raised to $100, someone will figure out a way to make $105, and we’ll be in the same situation again. Why not raise the price to $250, or $500, or $1000? When we start raising the cost of getting online, we get closer to the point where there is one level of service and access for corporations and those who can afford it, and another, lesser level for everyone else.

Go ahead and create the most annoying sites you can. At $100 per domain, you probably wouldn’t create as many - and the interweb would be a little less annoying

It would also be a little less useful, and a little less unique, and a little less enjoyable. Personally, I’m willing to put up with some annoyances in exchange for the good things that can come from easy and open access. The people who take advantage of the system will just find a different way of taking advantage, and the people who will be hurt will be the people who weren’t part of the problem in the first place.

If the price is raised to $100, someone will figure out a way to make $105, and we’ll be in the same situation again.

Huh? If domains are more expensive, more people will use link farms? Or link farms will be able to charge more for clicks? There isn’t a correlation here.

Why not raise the price to $250, or $500, or $1000?

My argument was the opposite: why not lower it to $0.10 or make registration free? Try to register any domain then. It’s almost free now, which is the problem.

The people who take advantage of the system will just find a different way of taking advantage, and the people who will be hurt will be the people who weren’t part of the problem in the first place.

So we should ignore the problem? Turn off our spam filters. Uninstall Norton. Let criminals walk. Ok, I’m going too far.

I think raising the price to $100 per domain is ludicrous.

I bought domains matching my name, my wifes name & my 2 childrens names (with a family name of smith I feel lucky to have gotten them at all) - at that price I would be spending $400 a year to own myname.com that’s just insane.

Then there are the 3 blog domains that I have, my teaching domain, my faculty domain, and my web design firms domain. There’s no way I could afford to have this many domains at $100 per. And for the record I use all of these domains.

If the price is raised to $100, someone will figure out a way to make $105, and we’ll be in the same situation again.

Huh? If domains are more expensive, more people will use link farms? Or link farms will be able to charge more for clicks? There isn’t a correlation here.

You’re right, there is no correlation, because I’m not talking about link farms. I’m saying there’s always a way to beat the system, whatever that may be. People will figure out a new way to beat the system, no matter what the barriers.

Why not raise the price to $250, or $500, or $1000?

My argument was the opposite: why not lower it to $0.10 or make registration free? Try to register any domain then. It’s almost free now, which is the problem.

Yes, I understand your argument; and I think you’re wrong. That was the point of my post, which you seem to have either completely missed, or are ignoring for the sake of argument. Most of the people who have commented on this thread claim that they would be negatively affected by raising the cost of registration to $100, and I hardly think that the people here should be considered squatters. To me, that’s a pretty strong hint that it’s a bad idea that would lead to all sorts of unintended consequences. It’s cutting off your nose to spite your face. I don’t know what the solution is, but raising the price to $100 surely isn’t it.

Why does my page have to provide value to you?  If I’m paying for it and it’s valuable to me, why should I care if you find my site annoying?

Go ahead and create the most annoying sites you can. At $100 per domain, you probably wouldn’t create as many - and the interweb would be a little less annoying.

I’m not refuting that raising the cost of domain registration will be a deterrent to some to purchase them.  But, who are you really hurting?  That person with the link farm will find some other scam to make money from.  But, the non-profit that doesn’t have $100 discretionary income won’t be able to have a web presence.  A family won’t be able to have their own domain to share family pictures.

My point is, you’re hurting a lot more people with legitimate (or at least non-spammy) reasons to have a website than you are deterring squatters.

I renewed all my domains not too long ago. Most of them have a 7 years term. I also pay for hosting as far out as possible. I get discounts for doing it this way.

So if the price of a domain was to increase, I’d be fine for at least that long.

I think I pay roughly $250 a year for all my sites and the hosting (and the DNS records). I make about half that back in ads.

So I have a $150 a year hobby, but if I died tomorrow my domains are still mine for a long time.

My point here is that raising the costs would do nothing to solve the problem in the immediate future. It would only block people trying to get into the market, not the ones already there. So new “legitimate” users don’t get better access to quality names, but they still have to shell out the cash. I can’t see this making any kind of positive impact for at least 5 or 6 years (if then).

I can actually see it improving the quality of the web for the visitors, but I think it’s baby with the bathwater, since a lot of cool sites would go away as well. In the end, this solution to me is worse than the problem.

It’s still easy to come up with good and clever names. Sure, a lot are already taken, but if it weren’t possible to come up with suitable names there wouldn’t be a business model based around this very thing! And if I want to register a domain with the intent to sell it, why shouldn’t I be able to? I had the idea, paid my cash. If I want to put up a blank page why shouldn’t I be able to? If I want to serve nothing but ads and I can get someone to pay me for those ads why shouldn’t I?

Plus, soon the possibilities will be endless.  Yes, more domains to squat :-p

From that article:

If approved, registering the TLD will cost anywhere from $100,000 to $500,000, ICANN says, and the business or organization must prove that they are either capable of managing the TLD or can reach a deal with a company that will. This is no small beans—unless you’re planning to fork over up to half a million dollars and put in the labor to manage everything that appears under the TLD, this task is probably best left to large organizations and governmental entities. The organization registering the TLD will also be responsible for determining whether it will be restricted to certain types of sites or open to the public.

So doubt if there will be much squatting going on.

Of course, I plan on registering at least three TLDs, since you know, I’m way rich.

While we are at it, can we raise drivers license to $5,000 yearly so we can have less idiots on the road?

While we are at it, can we raise drivers license to $5,000 yearly so we can have less idiots on the road?

And beer to $45 a glass so we have less drunks on the road.

From that article:

If approved, registering the TLD will cost anywhere from $100,000 to $500,000, ICANN says, and the business or organization must prove that they are either capable of managing the TLD or can reach a deal with a company that will. This is no small beans—unless you’re planning to fork over up to half a million dollars and put in the labor to manage everything that appears under the TLD, this task is probably best left to large organizations and governmental entities. The organization registering the TLD will also be responsible for determining whether it will be restricted to certain types of sites or open to the public.

So doubt if there will be much squatting going on.

Of course, I plan on registering at least three TLDs, since you know, I’m way rich.

I was assuming that registrars would purchase them and open them up for us poor folk.  Of course, these might be more than the prices that we’re used to.  Just major assumptions on my part.

The first article I read on this said companies like google would register google, I guess because that .com is so hard to type and remember.

From everything I’ve read on this these URLs would be extremely expensive. If you decided to go into business maintaining one of the TLDs, you would have to resell a heck of a lot of domains on your TLD to make your money back.

I honestly don’t see this solution even working. It would almost make google mandatory as a internet navigation tool. pesi.com is pretty obvious, so is just pepsi, but if you had to remember all the possible TLDs that would get tedious.

People are still going to clamor after the .com, since pretty much everything else is a second choice (in my opinion). Maybe I am wrong and really cool domain names will come out of this.

This is a VERY interesting idea. But as someone who has many domains under their belt (of which I’m proud to say none are squatted on), things could get very costly very quickly and such a dramatic increase may put off alot of small businesses from taking their works online which would be detrimental to the overall growth of the net.

An interesting concept nonetheless.