A big no no is to steal domains that just lapsed on their registration by mere seconds or minutes and then engage in price gouging via a scheme that makes Park.io not legally responsible (because well it's the owner of the domain who had purchased it via Park.io who is doing it, and do we really know that it's that owner or park.io itself hiding behind a some fake user account?)
Anyway, the idea of stealing domains and then ripping off people who are interested in them is really super amoral and stinky.
People should do good in the world, not make it a worse place , and then bate others with how much they make for sake of publicity and more money.
B.S. business model.
Secondly, as other comments have pointed out, you're being judgmental about the acquisition of expiring domains without any real knowledge of how that process works. It is in no way immoral to buy a domain when it expires. Using the word "steal" is ridiculous. You sound like a media company exec complaining about the internet.
This sort of baseless and lazy shaming that's supported more by ignorance than by cohesive arguments/facts has become so widespread in our culture, and it's sad to see it on HN.
If you forgot to renew the lease on your apartment and 75 days later, someone else rented it, it might suck or be annoying, but you'd still have to move.
The easy fix? Set everything to auto-renew & have a backup credit card on file.
If Tenant fails to pay the rent in full before the end of the 20th day after it's due,Tenant will pay Landlord a late charge of $20, plus $10 for each additional day that the rent remains unpaid. The total late charge for any one month will not exceed $120.
Even though I definitely should have, I haven't actually enforce it beyond the initial $20 late charge. In fact, I've kind of accidentally encoded a 20-day "grace period" into my lease (a tenant could pay me on the 19th of each month with no penalty, unless I chose to move forward with lease termination). But if you haven't paid your rent by the end of the month, you could have up to $120 extra charged. I'm sure your rental agreement has something similar (probably even more restrictive).
Your registrar enforces a late fee. When it expires, your domain stops working and goes into a 27 day grace period. During that time, you can notice and renew at the regular price. After those 27 days, it goes into redemption period, which has the the late fees.
I think the most expensive domain registration I've ever paid is $9.99, and seriously if you can't afford that annually, you have no business owning domains in the first place. There are plenty of free hosting options for portfolios.
FYI indiehackers and park.io are run by two diffrent individuals. park.io website is still up. It's the indiehackers website that is down.
Please note: I said it MAY be illegal. There are very special rules when it comes to domains. Some people have a legitimate reason for 'holding' a domain. On quick glance, this looks like a legitimate concern.
I am the founder of OpenDomain and we fight cybersquatting - contact me if anyone needs help with domain issues like this.