Are you proposing every domain name registrant pay for an annual appraisal, whether or not they are planning on selling?

No, I'm envisioning something like the property tax system - the state assessor tells you a number, you can accept that, informally discuss it with them, or make a formal appeal. Which, yes, might mean legal costs, but presumably only in cases where it was assessed to be worth a lot, in which case either you really are that wealthy and can afford the assessment, or you always have the option of ceding it to the state at the price they've assessed.

People pay registration fees every year for domains. How is what you propose different than registrars setting different fees for different domains? Or: What entity should be entitled to the tax, and why?

> How is what you propose different than registrars setting different fees for different domains?

Under what I propose, people using or squatting a popular domain that lots of people want would pay more, and people using an obscure domain no-one cares about would pay less. That would be more equitable.

> Or: What entity should be entitled to the tax, and why?

It's a Pigovian tax, so it has a positive effect even if you burn the proceeds. In an imaginary ideal world I'd put them in a kind of sovereign wealth fund for all humanity, that every natural person was equally entitled to, because no-one owns the word "milk" and everyone on Earth (other than the one person who does get to use the domain) is equally deprived by not being able to use the domain for their own website. In practice, using it to run internet infrastructure or putting it into general UN/government coffers would be fine.

Just to be clear, do you believe milk.com is being squatted on right now? Should its registrant morally pay more than the default annual registration cost?

If so: How does consistently using a domain (any domain) for literally 30 years (as of a week ago) for a personal website and an email address constitute "squatting?"

Please note that there is a significant time cost (both senses) switching one's email address. Speaking personally, I have found some organizations are effectively incapable of updating an email address in their systems, at least not on the first N attempts over the course of M years.

> Just to be clear, do you believe milk.com is being squatted on right now?

I probably wouldn't call it squatting, but it's something economically similar.

> Should its registrant morally pay more than the default annual registration cost?

Yes.

> If so: How does consistently using a domain (any domain) for literally 30 years (as of a week ago) for a personal website and an email address constitute "squatting?"

If someone's using a highly-in-demand domain for a small website visited only by friends and one email address, then I see that as wasteful and icky. It's like having a /8 IP block because you registered in the early days of the internet, and using it for your home network of 5 computers. Or having a giant mansion in the middle of town where you live in a couple of rooms and leave the rest to rot. Or owning a bunch of historic paintings/cars/etc. that sit permanently in storage and are never used or seen. More "hoarding" than "squatting" I guess, but equally gross.

Near as I can tell, the domain isn't "highly-in-demand" in any meaningful way.

I think the whiners who carp about its current use are just crypto-jealous.

If people are jealous of the domain then it is ipso facto in demand.

I look forward to you reviewing your HN contributions in a decade or so.