That seems to be more of what he's getting at here:

The problem with not having the .com of your name is that it signals weakness. Unless you're so big that your reputation precedes you, a marginal domain suggests you're a marginal company.

To push it further a .io domain is signalling and that's what makes it attractive.

It was originally airbedandbreakfast.com.

This is exactly why the .com domain wins. They do not have this attitude. Their attitude is to be in it to win it and do what it necessary to be successful. That's the .com signal.

If ProductHunt disappeared tomorrow, I'd be sad, but that's it.

Stripe and Parse on the other hand both needed to signal strength to their customers from day one. There are many customers that would not entrust their payment details with getstripe.ly.

Maybe I'm just getting old but the .com wins it for me, at an absolute push for online services I'll trust a .net

I know that the dotcom doesn't do that either, it's not a rational thing - just a thing

Also, blind optimism is not required for success. And no domain name is an antidote for a shitty idea that nobody cares about.

I tried a different domain with a .io domain; and it just wasen't worth it the effort.(they knew about .net. ,org, but that's it.). There's almost a anger that comes up when a domain ext. gets to specific, like .photography?

So PG is right that a .com is important but not for the reasons he seem to indicate.

That you can acquire a proper .com is a manifestation of your success it is not the base of your success. And that is how his essay comes of at least to me and many others.

Nonetheless, Paul's point about naming is a good one. You have to have a good name. But, I see no evidence (and he didn't provide any) why the name has to be associated with a .COM domain. His only 'evidence' that he mentions is the fact that "100% of the top 20 YC companies by valuation have the .com of their name. 94% of the top 50 do. But only 66% of companies in the current batch have the .com of their name." This doesn't mean that 94% of the top 50 are right (in owning the .com).

However, I do think the point he is making is correct, that there are a number of constraints, but that the optimal decision involves a different weighting of them to that of many founders (my interpretation). I would argue that the constraints for startup founders naming companies are: 1) short and easy to say & remember 2) available (cheaply) 3) domain (.com vs others) 4) intrinsically meaningful 5) related to the business

Some founders compromise on 3 and give more weight to 4 and 5: what I think he's saying is that 1,2,3 are much more important than 4 and 5, to the point that "almost any word or word pair that is not an obviously bad name is a sufficiently good one".

The point (and title) of the essay is "change your name," not "make sure you get the .com."

3 weeks ago I purchased the .com after the original owner let it expire, cost me more than I wanted to pay bet less than I would have paid. I was ecstatic, feels so much better to say abc.com ... !

Originally it was producthunt.co, and once there was sufficient traction, producthunt.com was acquired for a few thousand dollars (if memory serves).

I don't think anyone would argue that Product Hunt should have chosen a different name because the corresponding .com was taken.

Looking at Crunchbase, they had raised around $13M at that point, so I'm sure spending $200,000 seemed like a lot at the time.[2]

[1] http://mashable.com/2006/08/25/facebook-profile/

[2] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/facebook/funding-rou...