[emmab]

Solution: Reserve cool user ids and sell them yourself later if your service becomes popular?

[dmichulke]

"ID Squatting"

[altmind]

I remember people were selling premium UIDs in ICQ. Also, low, 5-digit UIDs could be sold for single hundreds dollars. A novel way to indicate you were an ICQ veteran.

[samus]

Similar thing has happened on Slashdot - the shorter the ID, the higher prestige