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Re:Ask HN: Economics of domain hoarders by gexla on Saturday January 01, 2011 @12:09PM (#2057858)
Simple. Domains are so cheap that if you buy one for ~ $8 then you only need to make that money back in one year for it to be profitable. That's less than 70 cents per month for a .com. There are a number of parking services where making that much money isn't terribly difficult. So... the more you buy, the more money you could possibly make. Some might just make their money back, some might do very well. Overall, the domaineers are likely at least breaking even. Add in the fact that they have a bit of experience doing this, then for sure they are making money.
Re:Ask HN: Economics of domain hoarders by iqster on Saturday January 01, 2011 @12:29PM (#2057893)
Good point. 70 cents a month is likely easy to recover.

Another thought I had was hoarders attempting to grab usable names in order to extort real companies to pony up. I believe this happened a lot in the late 90s. Wonder how common it is today?

Re:Ask HN: Economics of domain hoarders by michaelelliot on Saturday January 01, 2011 @12:46PM (#2057927)
This has become quite a fruitless endeavor. WIPO and other domain arbitrators will swiftly hand domains over to their rightful owners if there is a trademark or history of trading under a particular name.
Re:Ask HN: Economics of domain hoarders by user24 on Saturday January 01, 2011 @12:18PM (#2057875)
yep. Plus the domainer websites are awash with news stories about domains selling for thousands, so plenty of newbies think it's going to be easy money.