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debate Let's be real, most successful domainers are people who registered domains 15-30 years ago

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Siggy2500

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This is what nobody talks about.

Decades ago, lets say roughly 25 years ago, when the internet was in its golden age, domains were in abundance and many good names were available, the average person could usually register the domain he needed without it being taken.

Domaining is not futureproof, not sustainable, it's more of an early-internet thing, even now the internet is still very young if you think about it, BUT, as the internet gets older and more people are using it, computers are advancing, the demand increases and all the half-decent domains get sucked up, even with the new TLDs. The new TLDs are overpriced, and nothing will ever compare to when the internet was fairly new, when good domains were available & free and without having to pay thousands of dollars or even millions for them.

Now, today, more than 20 years after the dot-com bubble, realistically, no domains are available for registering, only the pickers are left and if you want to get a good domain in your collection, you have to buy it at a premium and pray someone is going to buy it, and I don't think people really profit much from that at all, because it's likely that the would-be buyer is another domainer or as the nerds call it, "domain investor" like you, and I guess if the domainer or would-be buyer is smart he wouldnt buy the domain at any higher price than you did yourself because then he would have to resell it even higher if he's trying to make a profit just like you did. Then the price continues to become so high that there isn't much room left to profit off the domain within the domaining industry, then again there are chances it gets purchased by a business or individual interested in it, and then that domain goes out of public circulation and gets used as a website, with only the trash pickers left within the domaining industry.

Nobody wants domains ending in, for example: .xyz and other ugly similarities, even if you get a good domain with such ugly endings it's still realistically worthless, be real. The only TLDs in which "good" domains are worth anything are .COM, .NET and .AI, etc and that only being said if your website has traffic, it's true if you are a logical person and not a trash hoarder. The only domains which have value are high traffic domains, and if you have an ugly TLD domain, for example .xyz with high traffic, good for you, your domain has physical people entering it, then I can make an exception and consider it "valuable".

And finally, domains are not property which means you do not own them, you only have the right to use them and that is only so if you pay the yearly fee. Domains aren't property, therefore they have no book value, no officially recognized value because as I said, it's not property. It's only speculation and it's up to the so called "domain investors" what the market value for it is.

Different can be said about high traffic domains, as I said above, they have physical backing behind them in the form of customers (humans), which are important for generating revenue for a website. The only way you can make a domain "valuable" nowadays is by developing it into a website with traffic.


Alright, that is enough. Now I will be stormed with shit, feel free to thumbs down this post and mass-report me, moderate me or or whatever. I don't care! Just stay mad. Stay edgy! 🤡


And feel free to correct any mistake I made in this post, I might take it as advice, it depends. 🐒🐒🐒
 
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If anyone writing on these forums was successful, he wouldn't be writing on these forums.

There's quite a number of very active members who also happen to be very successful in domaining so... I beg to differ.
 
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There's quite a number of very active members who also happen to be very successful in domaining so... I beg to differ.
Yeah, there are several people on the forums who are successful in the domain field.

If anything, you have more free time if you are making relatively passive domain sales.

Brad
 
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I honestly find threads like this comical, especially since you start out saying:
This is what nobody talks about.

In hindsight, yes - it was a great investment to snatch up those early .coms. The real problem comes in the technical capabilities of most individuals, speculative futures, and the fact that the variety of registrars was limited, and commonly involved paperwork. This is also not to mention the fact that the massive monopoly Network Solutions itself had before major ICANN accreditations, which resulted in higher fees - which limited your average person's ability to diversify their portfolio.

To bring a modern approach to your puzzle, why aren't you (perhaps not you specifically) investing in Web3-related domains or TLDs? Why aren't you taking a piece of the NFT cake? Why aren't you a major market player in the decentralized virtual real estate space?
 
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If anyone writing on these forums was successful, he wouldn't be writing on these forums.
This is the salty truth.
You might think, hey I'm doing good I'm on these places doing my business.
That's not successful, that's hard working for some minor profit :\
Never quit tho.
Not everyone invests in domains with the intent to make millions, and working hard for some "minor profit" could well be considered success if that was the intent.

And it's also nice to get some insight into how people negotiate, or whether a certain type of client, service, or marketplace is reliable.
 
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I disagree with OP checkout the drops so mamy crap names was registered around 20 years ago.
 
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The OP showed his industry knowledge, or lack there of, by stating the following -

“The only TLDs in which "good" domains are worth anything are .COM, .NET and .AI”
Hi

i was going to say he forgot to mention .org

and i also think .ai will fade once all the best one-two word combo's are gone.
cuz who's gonna reg 3-4 word names in .ai, like we do with .com?

imo...
 
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Domaining currently has a half-life of 10-20 years at the moment I am pretty sure, it will be dying from now on regardless of what I've said.
Hello,

So, what you are saying is that in 10-20 years there will be no new companies, no business opportunities and NO internet just because the current .com domain investing market is saturated with people buying and selling domains, and a the best inventory was acquired at the dawn of the internet?

I can understand what you are saying from reading your post, and replies to such. However, I find your reasoning somewhat reductive. In that, it is limited to how you want the market to be, rather than the reality of what it is.

Running a business and generating revenue correlates directly to global and national economies. One simply has to look at the Macroeconomic data over the last few years. The simplest ones: High Inflation, & Higher interest rates! These have been squeezing individuals and businesses available disposable income & cash flows. Thus, reducing the available liquidity in the domain market. If one pays attention to macroeconomic data , you should be able to forecast the inflow/outflow of money to any given market, and adjust your strategy depending on the Economic data, rather than what you want the market to do, or thinking there are no long term opportunities simply because of a current liquidity drought.

When analysing the domain market, we have to analyse it like any other market in the global, and national economy, and also look at it from how new businesses, or domain buyers will think too.

Let us look at this hypothetical scenario. We have Company 1 that is pre launch and deciding on a name for their business. They will conduct research to see what social handles they can use, and then possibly see if the .com is available - whichever way the want to check. If the .com is not available, they will look to see what other extensions are. If the .com is only available at a premium price, they will see if they can actually afford it. If they can, then great they may just purchase it. If they cannot, what do you think these companies will do? They will register one of the extensions that are available and within their budget including using one of the relevant new extensions that directly applies to their industry.

Like the following:

Economics.report
Investing.broker
Spatial.Archi
420.trading
Forex.promo

All of the above, I have registered (along with many more), and do not expect to sell for a few years yet

Where you see dilution of the .com value (with other extensions like .xyz), most seasoned investors don't see that. The .com names will retain their value based on the simple premise of supply and demand. Now the supply of these is limited the demand will always be high for the right .com names and those with the access to funds to pay for them.

The introduction of other extensions like .xyz, and the newer ones, is financially a good thing. Even if currently some people don't want them for their business. It shows that the domain market is moving forward and there are still a lot of opportunities left in the market. Especially given that an estimated 100 Million new business start each year and these other extensions like .xyz will become even more valuable in 10-20 years.

I actually think, In 10-20 years, there will be newer extensions as they will be needed, and the older ones like .xyz will become more valuable as the supply will be reduced. Also, we can see the current prices of single word .xyz names now (around the $50k-$100k range for good ones - this could be a sub-market trend that is time limited rather than an indication of inherent value.

Every market generally tends to move forward with the developing economy, and I am extremely bullish on some of the other extensions that we have now. To the point that I have been buying up single keyword .xyz names that I am fully prepared to hold for 10-20years until the supply becomes limited - whether this works or not, time will tell!

Understanding how the overall economy works, rather than applying a subjective and somewhat reductive analysis based on what opportunities we missed, is what is important. We have to look at it through the lease of the customer first, and look at how they might think. .com is not the be all and end all, and there is a lot of money still left out there, if one has the right strategy.

The domain market has evolved ( and will keep evolving), and I think that your approach is somewhat nostalgic to the point you feel like you have missed out. Actually, you have not missed out, you just have to have a strategy that matches the current economic climate, as well as a long term strategy.
 
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It is not bad (or mean) that 25 years ago everything was easier, and people made money.

(whereas today it is much harder).

It is only bad, when you - theoretically - had the chance to invest & sell domains 25 years ago, but didn't make it,
and now see what you all have missed, what you could have earned.
 
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But you may also be broke after those 10 years of waiting.
Yep, no pain no gain you really have to be prepared, being early is an advantage but comes with risks.

Personally did great first 5 years with new G's everything's taken a nose-dive now but mitigated this with domains I can carry for the foreseeable future and a small portfolio that I can still curate without feeling drained if a registry decides to become silly.

Basically know what you're getting into. Dot-com and other legacy were pretty straight-forward and continues to be but waay too saturated with rotten names and I like seeing end users using sensible terms. Most sensible terms were had by the early bird investors. The other options we have are obfuscated by no limit terms/conditions and don't have the accountability to the market that dot-com has built over the last 30 years.
 
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In my opinion, .COM, .NET, and a few other traditional domain extensions hold high value due to their familiarity and trustworthiness. You are absolutely right about that. However, domain extensions like .xyz, .app, and others can still be valuable when used strategically. Basically, the perceived value of a domain extension often depends on its relevance to the content or business it represents.
 
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It is not bad (or mean) that 25 years ago everything was easier, and people made money.

(whereas today it is much harder).

It is only bad, when you - theoretically - had the chance to invest & sell domains 25 years ago, but didn't make it,
and now see what you all have missed, what you could have earned.

Its the same with any investment. Think about when BTC was just $10/pop. And that's not even that long ago... Think about some stocks...

Could've been a millionaire. Oh well...
 
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It is possible in 20 years that domaining will be dead because it is possible in 20 years the web as we know it will be obsolete and we will all be migrating onto something else.

It's also possible that although technology seems to be accelerating at a great rate in the last 40 years, that we're about to hit a stagnation period and in 50 years we'll still be using the web much like we are now
 
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Looking forward, you'll do best looking at the internet as Not too dissimilar to the Phone-system. Anybody involved in the very early developments of the telephone exchanges and the manual switchboards would recognise the progression into todays multifaceted and merged technologies that gave us the internet/mobile communications that we have today. Only a fool would think of the entire system being replaced by some yet to be developed new technology. Sure enhancements will continue to surprise and open-up new product and service prospects. That is a domainers foundation.

If you can't latch on to that vision, it's unlikely you'll ever be able accurately predict the new concepts that will make for future Good domain names. There's very little point in trying to envisage anything beyond 10 to 20 years ahead as some seem to do, its realistic application and life enhancement is going to be influenced by far too many unforeseen contributing factors.

By all means keep your head high but do keep your feet firmly on the ground. The comment about just how much dross was registered by early domainers and is only just being dropped after all these years should be examined by all new-commers. It will give you a real insight into just how much a lack of sensible logic influenced poor choices in domains since day one. Sadly, though that same mindsets seems to prevail today
 
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Whenever I see that sales-pitch. Domain previously registered for ten or twenty years. I automatically think "Well that was a load of Cr*p then" OR "So well past its Sale-by date."

It's never a sales point for a reregistered domain.

A Good Domainer today, should see themselves as a modern day Tool-Maker. Designing a domain that opens up a facility to access a service/product/concept in a more precise, succinct way and fashion
 
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Hi

domains that "speak for themselves", don't need a sales pitch.


imo..
Like this beauty vaccine-q-diary.com at 9,500 EUR
 
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Anyone can price a domain name very few price it right.
 
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Amazing thread.
One person is wasting too many people time for discussing something that does not make any sense.
 
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It is possible in 20 years that domaining will be dead because it is possible in 20 years the web as we know it will be obsolete and we will all be migrating onto something else.

It's also possible that although technology seems to be accelerating at a great rate in the last 40 years, that we're about to hit a stagnation period and in 50 years we'll still be using the web much like we are now
In 20 years, everything is possible. But I agree with your point. Well, perhaps, in the next 20 years, it's indeed possible that the landscape of the web may undergo significant transformations. Besides, emerging technologies such as blockchain and decentralized web systems could impact the way domains are registered and used. This might change the domain industry as we know it today.
 
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This doesn't apply only to domains, it applies to any type of investing. Of course, the earlier you invest, the higher the returns are. However, the risks are also higher. I've never understood the hate on .xyz, I personally sold SME.xyz ($1988) and SkyBank.xyz ($488) and I only had like 50 .xyz domains since I started domaining.
 
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This doesn't apply only to domains, it applies to any type of investing. Of course, the earlier you invest, the higher the returns are. However, the risks are also higher. I've never understood the hate on .xyz, I personally sold SME.xyz ($1988) and SkyBank.xyz ($488) and I only had like 50 .xyz domains since I started domaining.

And more generally it's about timing. A friend of mine was early on Bitcoin, but unfortunately he also sold (most of) his bag way too early.
 
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And more generally it's about timing. A friend of mine was early on Bitcoin, but unfortunately he also sold (most of) his bag way too early.
Many people did the same thing; some even lost their wallets with Bitcoins and just didn't pay attention to it. Well, until they became worth something.
 
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