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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 10.07.13 19:30, Chaitanya Dhareshwar
wrote:<br>
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<div>I disagree with you on some of this Daniel. While you're
right in that a domain per se has no value - that's like
saying land per se has no value, or proper nouns (eg. New
York) per se have no value or like silicon per se has no
value. </div>
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<br>
We can not ignore the fact, that unlike the examples you gave,
domain names are not ... real. Nor are they unique.<br>
<br>
Imagine, we have two names, amazon.com in "this" Internet and
amazon.com in someone else's Internet (alternative DNS root). Now,
just like with the theory that we can have an unlimited number of
parallel realities, we can also have unlimited number of virtual
realities (Internet DNS roots).<br>
<br>
We know, in this particular Internet, whose root is managed by the
IANA and .COM by VeriSign, amazon.com does have some value. For
Amazon at least.<br>
But let's consider two other parallel Internet universes, that of
John Public and that of Jane Masters.<br>
It may turn out, that in John's Internet, amazon.com too has great
value (it might sell health care services and be pretty popular
worldwide). This is because whoever ran .com there and whoever ran
amazon.com made sure it is well recognized. Provided value.<br>
In Jane's Internet however, amazon.com might not have any value, for
whatever unfortunate reason.<br>
The same amazon.com domain name.<br>
<br>
Comparing this with the items of your example, imagine we are 1000
years back and people have no idea what to do with silicon. For
them, it does not have any value.<br>
Or if New York happened to be in an country where there is an
continuing civil war and everything is in ruins.<br>
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<div>Naturally creating the value depends on someone, somewhere
- but the fact is that these things exist and hence can be
valued - given a specific 'value' and traded for that value or
the value increased/diminished. </div>
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When it comes to domain names, they are just strings. These can
exist in unlimited amounts and in any arrangement. If we restrict
yourselves to "our" Internet then creating new TLDs will not impact
the amazon.com's value. It has value because of that someone,
somewhere.<br>
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<div>The context of <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://amazon.com">amazon.com</a> - the value of that
domain name is a static zero. It's someone else's brand and
would thus be inappropriate to 'take' that (if it were
available) perhaps even illegal. </div>
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<br>
I could imagine it has high value for anything associated with
"Amazon", for example an hypothetical "Amazon are preservation
society" or even the some contemporary representatives of the
Amazons (<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazons">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazons</a>).<br>
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<div> </div>
<div>Domain trading is more related to the perceived value of a
domain, and not necessarily actual marketable brand value.
Perception that a .COM domain is better for international
business than a .IN domain, or that a .WS website may prove to
be a more effective online platform than other things - purely
perception - and people are willing to invest in it to get
that perceived boost. </div>
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<br>
The perception that a .COM domain is better than .XYZ domain comes
only from the perception that the service offered by the .COM domain
registration system (registry, registrars, resellers etc), available
pricing etc. In this regard .COM is "better", simply because nothing
about .XYZ is certain.<br>
But if the .XYZ registration system proves to be superior, it might
instead take the crown (which will take years to be beneficial, of
course).<br>
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<div>If .COM and .IN ceases to exist as such, and you can have
anything and everything - there will be a loss of that
perception, and thus a loss of interest in registering
specific more expensive TLDs - which in turn would result in
perceived losses to the root authorities of these domains. </div>
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<br>
Not living in the US and not believing ever, that .COM is "my"
domain, I tend to disagree. In fact, I have few .COM domains that
match the .BG domains I use and those are simply.. not used. Perhaps
I am biased, but "my" domain (TLD) is which I chose -- very similar
to "my" country is which I chose --- with the caveat that it is much
easier to chose a TLD, than to chose a country to live in... <br>
<br>
If these TLDs however cease to exist, that will be huge disaster for
anyone who chose them for their "home". Nothing to do with their
value.<br>
If they become unstable however, then their value will decrease.<br>
<br>
Daniel<br>
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