The concepts that eluded you were so eloquently explained at the bottom: "This is just for fun! A proof of concept."

The concept it proves is that a string can be hashed, not the concept it presents.

put more levels?

You receive a phrase, then get its hash, enter that hash and geta hashed url?

I get that, but we might keep that in mind while still having a discussion about real-world feasability of such idea :).

I think the point is that it's a dumb concept.

"and the primary source of frustration is that they are mostly taken by various squatters and other scums of the Internet"

"Scums of the Internet"? Oh please.

Where are you getting this all from exactly? You've just decided that since you weren't able to buy a domain [1] that you wanted at a price that you could afford to pay that all domains "are mostly taken by various squatters and other scum of the Internet".

I mean "scum"? How unfair that something that you want isn't available at a price YOU can pay. And if that price was affordable that someone else wouldn't have beaten you to buying it (which is already what happened, right?). I mean it would just be sitting there because nobody else ever thought of using or buying, say "hackernews.com" until PG decided to start Hacker news.

Or perhaps you think that domains are a "public trust" and that there should be some official board designated that decides who is worthy of a particular domain and whether they are "using" that particular domain "the right way". You know to make things fair.

Is that it? Further you are talking about .com because in general and with maybe a few exceptions, you can find many names in other TLD's (you just don't want them) or make a slight modification and have the domain you want in .com.

By the way are you aware that google owns duck.com and refuses to sell it [2] at any price at all? (And has turned down $500,000 for it iim.) Of course they aren't "using it" [3] and only have it because they bought the company that previously owned it

At least if it was owned by a person such as you refer to it would be available for sale at some price.

[1] Or perhaps that wasn't even the case maybe you have just read about other people or know someone that this was the "aggrieved" party?

[2] I was involved in trying to do this. And I communicated and had back and forth with high level people at google who in the end simply said "sorry not interested at any price". And this isn't the first time this has happened with a company either.

[3] It redirects to google.com as if they need that traffic.

I get it, you work for a registrar, so you are naturally defensive (which I understand).

But like individuals who buy empty lots from the Forest Service to resell at a premium, can't you understand why this seems like an inefficient market outcome? Sure, it may be desirable/profitable, but not ideal?

Squatting may be a result of our domain registration system, but is it really desirable? to me it seems like a negative externality, that over-uses free domain names and which sells them for 100x times the price from a registrar, despite their non-use.

Why is a squatter adding any value? Should all domains be bought by one person who uses none for his one purposes, and sells each for 1k?

Explain what you mean by ideal? I'm not sure I get where you are going with that. Domain pricing is determined by economic forces.

"Why is a squatter adding any value?"

Value? What is the value of gambling at the casino or horse racing? Is value the demarcation point of economic activity that is acceptable?

What value does anyone provide who has enough knowledge (and or capital) to be able to buy something in advance anticipating that someone else might find it of value at a later date? We aren't talking about cornering the market on insulin here are we? Am I allowed to buy high volume scanners on craigslist and then sell them on ebay and make money? Am I providing "value"?

"Should all domains be bought by one person who uses none for his one purposes, and sells each for 1k?"

Well what prevents you from doing this to make money? Is it that you a) don't have the capital or b) don't have the knowledge to determine what would sell at a later date or c) you just find it objectionable and desire to not be in that business. (Like porn for example..)

If "c" then can you understand that it's a valid business model, is not illegal and in a sense is about as "fair" as someone buying real estate years ago in a hot area and now expecting to make a profit off that real estate? After all there is a risk in using your capital "a" to take this chance, right? You certainly don't believe that buying a bunch of domains that you think might go up in value is guaranteed do you?

<i>I get it, you work for a registrar</i>

Or AFLAC.

I don't know what "the right way" of "using" the domain name is. But I don't think sitting on the domain without actually using it is the right way.

Who is worthy of the domain? At least the one actually intend on using it is more worthy than the one intending to sit on it to ask for rip-off money.

Squatter are scums.

Domain squatters are no better than investment bankers. They really do the same thing, they make money without creating anything useful.

Would you mind substantiating your generalisation that investment bankers make money without creating anything useful?

What on earth do you think Investment Bankers do? build playgrounds for the local children?

Creating nothing useful is in the definition of "Investment Banker".

Umm, yes actually? Where do you think the playground equipment manufacturer got their initial capital?

From the three Fs? From a customer who wanted some playground equipment? From a crowdfunded philanthropic project that wanted to build some playgrounds? By saving up their income from previous jobs before making a go of a new company?

Basically, from the same places that the manufacturer gets their money from in order to pay dividends to the investors.

Investment banking is _a_ lubricant of industry, not _the_ lubricant, certainly not the fuel.

Wow. How much do you know about business and how long have you been around business?

Do you think that crowdfunding has replaced needing to raise capital through the legacy process of initial public offerings and also that companies that use investment bankers to not seek out a merger or acquisition of another company don't serve a purpose?

What do you think you just need millions to expand and walk into the bank or go to kickstarter?

Aren't investment bankers the ones providing money when one needs to build a new shipyard, oil rig or a power plant? It's definitely out of range of "Three Fs" or Kickstarter.

I think you are confusing "investing in" with "producing". They are in fact different activities.

I believe "creating anything useful" in this context means "doing any useful task"; I don't believe the original poster intended to put nurses, cops, or any service job in the same group as investment banker and domain squatter.

In that sense, investment banker is still a useful and necessary job, unlike domain squatter.

So in your opinion is a domain squatter worse, the same, or better than a real estate investor? That is someone who identifies something that has value that might be able to be sold at a higher value at a later date and buys it for less than they intend to sell at that later date?

IMO domain squatters are worse (and definitely more annoying). While real estate investing still seems like a parasitic activity and I'd be happy for it to disappear, at least when it comes to houses, a buyer usually doesn't care about a particular building - one can equally well live in a house next door, or next street. Whereas domains are almost never interchangable; if someone squats on my-company-name.com (and similar forms), I won't settle for company-my-name-friendshipismagic.com; I am pretty much forced to either buy from them or change the company/product name.

With respect to real estate investors provide liquidity as there is not always an end user who is willing to buy at the time you want to sell.

As far as "squatting on my company name" the majority of the vitriol on HN regarding domain names is not directed at "squatting on my company name" (to which there are clearly defined rules and procedures for recovering a domain (UDRP)) but just at the general idea of someone getting a domain and holding it to sell at a later date.

As far as "to either buy from them or change the company/product name" we are talking the year 2014 here. If you are starting a new company you should be taking into account whether the domain name you want is available. People don't, I know this for multiple reasons. One is that I get assignments to buy domains for startups that have already branded (which they shouldn't have done) and then come and say "I need this domain what can you do for me?" (in so many words).

Now if you are an established company and all the sudden woke up in 2014 and want your domain well then I guess that's to bad. Even back 10 years ago big corporations had this problem because the people they hired didn't know enough to lock up their domains. Either because they were inept or because they didn't feel it was important to have (so what can you say about that?)

I feel like you're being unfair to domain squatters here. Yes, they're scum - but at least they're honest scum.

Squatters are scum. They add nothing of value and make a resource artificially scarce for their own profit. If domain names had no value and people could just buy another one, then squatters wouldn't be making money in the first place.

I can't reply to you for some reason, nick2021, so replying to myself.

It's different because the squatter is essentially leeching off of everyone else. If it wasn't for them the people who wanted the domains could have gotten it for free or at least less. They add nothing of value at all.

One could argue the same for people who squat other scarce natural resources that they paid nothing for.

I agree with you. However making a resource artificially scarce to push the price up is what humans do. From where I am sitting I can see multiple items where this happens gold, diamonds (wife's ring), water (in a glass) electricity (well, a turned in light), several things with brand names on them (the copyrighted logo seems to keep that price up by ensuring that only one supplier exists, keeping supply low). I'd be quite surprised if there was much in the room which wasn't artificially price inflated.

Sort of but it's not exactly the same thing. Physical items generally take effort to build or to extract, and they generally pay for the land or materials or whatever. Copyright is meant to artificially inflate the value, for the benefit of the author who wrote it.

If there is a case of someone just inflating the price and adding literally no value at all then I would say that is just as bad.

Squatters took the .com.au domain that I owned for my old business that didn't get re-registered due to the partnership folding. I went to get it 6 months later, and literally some squatting company had taken it and wanted to "auction it off" -- despite the fact that prior to me, no-one wanted it (its weirdly specific) and seeing as 5 years later they still have it and have just plastered it with ads, no-one still does.

Oh, and that goes against Australian domain regulations, but auDA refuse to do anything about it, sigh. Oh well, they can own a useless (to them) domain if they want to. I just think its silly.

First-to-claim is a really poor way of allocating any kind of resources, and yes, someone who just claims a bunch of stuff under such a system and then waits for it to become valuable due to other people's efforts is scum.

Solutions? I'd like to see something like a tax proportionate to asking price on domains, analogous to a land value tax, to discourage claiming domains that you're not actually using.

You're right, looks like someone already bought f02970848a63988965aa40cd368ffcf9046209ca.com

..and my company's proxy server doesn't like it "Your request was denied because of its content categorization: "Malicious Sources/Malnets"

LoL xD

Some light-hearted stats on domain names

(characters used, length, common sub-strings ...)

http://www.datagenetics.com/blog/march22012/index.html

use this for secret info transfer if you know the right phrase. imagine the phrase being a hash itself.