Depends on what you do with it. If you develop on it and the domain is a logical, obvious descriptor of the app or service you offer then it can act as a multiplier of the underlying value of the product.
In general, buying a great domain with the hope of selling it later for more money is a bad idea. Unless you can steal it and the chance of that happening is slim. And you can wait 5 or 10 years or never for the "right" buyer to come along.
You need a large number of domains to be able to hold them and sell them later on if that is what you are trying to do.
I never cared one bit about SEO so whatever it does it does. I started alerting the users many months ago that a shift was imminent and the traffic has dropped a bit but not in a terrible way. Many people had already fixed their links and I suspect the remainder will do so shortly. Of course there will be a permanent hit from this, the new (actually, the old) domain is a lot harder to remember than the one that just sold.
Let me explain what drives this process. The buyer here is a Chinese company that somehow magically can move millions of $US to the other side of the world. Most Chinese companies, even those that have lots of $US can not do that, they run into the $50K/year barrier that the Chinese central bank has set up.
So by buying domains abroad and then offering them to Chinese buyers that can not move their $ outside of China these people will make a substantial profit on their deal. And I don't think it takes too much imagination to figure out why they can move money out of China when everybody else can not.
Perhaps if Jacques is not willing to give the price that he sold the name for he could mention the % that the broker received for the sale and/or the gross commission.
Edit: I'm curious why the HN handle of the seller was removed from the post. To me that is an added point of interest and relevant.
In general, HN tries to focus on content, not personalities. So this was a clear case for reverting to the article title, even though you're right that jacquesm is the only reason why people here (including me!) would find it interesting.
It sometime happens that a story makes it to the front page because of some bait that was added to the title (in this case, to add social curiosity where intellectual interest was lacking), whereupon a moderator removes the bait from the title. This is not a bad pattern if you think about it. It's ok for the front page to have a few such stories, but they shouldn't dominate it. And once a story makes the front page, it should stand on its own.
That's not really fair to Tom, (since it might affect his ability to negotiate in the future), but let's just say that I would happily recommend him to anybody, his rates are reasonable and he works really hard (which in the world of brokers is a welcome change). We got close to selling 3 times, and in the end I got a deal that I'm pretty happy with. Let's just say that since I bought ww.com with the proceeds of gameplay.com, which in turn I bought for $12 I would be highly surprised if I ever say that kind of ROI again in my life.
Should we start capping the amounts that startups can be acquired for? If FB is willing to pay 1B for Instagram, 19B for Whatsapp, or more - who's to say that they can't spend their money the way they want to?
For one caps are absolutely non-enforceable, second it would be setting a pretty bad precedent to retro-actively set a cap on something long after the trading has started. I'm not aware of a precedent like that. Imagine a cap on land prices. Or a cap on gold or any other good that is freely traded.
Next thing you know you're going to have to declare your 'five year plan' when you register a domain...
Outside of the get rich quick dopes who think they're going to strike it big, who cares about this? If I wanted to read about vapid people concerned only with making money out of thin air while doing nothing useful, I'd be reading SEO blogs. "It's worth a lot of money because people pay for it!!" is a pathetic excuse to give attention to something, especially on a site ostensibly for people with active brain cells.
The exact same concept as holding onto a parking spot and waiting for someone to come along and pay for it. Despicable. I read most everything jacquesm writes and enjoy it, but how can you justify rent-seeking on a public resource?
You do realize that that 'parking spot' has had my highest income website on it for over a decade with about 100K visitors daily even at the low times?
Also, I'm not sure what you mean with 'public resource' in this context, domains are more like private registries held by semi-official companies that you can choose to do business with or not.
There is a near infinity of them, shorter ones are obviously in short supply but to date I've never ever had a problem buying a domain for a new project for $8 or so.
[+] [-] drcode|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jacquesm|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] orik|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spking|11 years ago|reply
The new TLDs are doing really poorly in terms of end-user adoption: http://www.ricksblog.com/2014/06/rick-schwartz-equation/
[+] [-] larrys|11 years ago|reply
In general, buying a great domain with the hope of selling it later for more money is a bad idea. Unless you can steal it and the chance of that happening is slim. And you can wait 5 or 10 years or never for the "right" buyer to come along.
You need a large number of domains to be able to hold them and sell them later on if that is what you are trying to do.
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jacquesm|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unreal37|11 years ago|reply
Now if I can only sell my 2 letter domain for that...
[+] [-] jacquesm|11 years ago|reply
I'm pretty sure you could. What domain do you have?
[+] [-] crisnoble|11 years ago|reply
A good domain only have the economic strength and strategic vision of the business or individual reservations!"
Was this what jacquesm had on there or is this post aquisition? For some reason I found it quite funny.
[+] [-] jacquesm|11 years ago|reply
Let me explain what drives this process. The buyer here is a Chinese company that somehow magically can move millions of $US to the other side of the world. Most Chinese companies, even those that have lots of $US can not do that, they run into the $50K/year barrier that the Chinese central bank has set up.
So by buying domains abroad and then offering them to Chinese buyers that can not move their $ outside of China these people will make a substantial profit on their deal. And I don't think it takes too much imagination to figure out why they can move money out of China when everybody else can not.
[+] [-] larrys|11 years ago|reply
Edit: I'm curious why the HN handle of the seller was removed from the post. To me that is an added point of interest and relevant.
[+] [-] dang|11 years ago|reply
It sometime happens that a story makes it to the front page because of some bait that was added to the title (in this case, to add social curiosity where intellectual interest was lacking), whereupon a moderator removes the bait from the title. This is not a bad pattern if you think about it. It's ok for the front page to have a few such stories, but they shouldn't dominate it. And once a story makes the front page, it should stand on its own.
[+] [-] jacquesm|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] general_failure|11 years ago|reply
(note that ww.com was not squatted on, i know that. i am just asking in general why a price cap is a bad idea for resale.)
[+] [-] joelrunyon|11 years ago|reply
Should we start capping the amounts that startups can be acquired for? If FB is willing to pay 1B for Instagram, 19B for Whatsapp, or more - who's to say that they can't spend their money the way they want to?
[+] [-] fiatmoney|11 years ago|reply
And super-valuable domains are minuscule portion of overall domain sales, it simply wouldn't be worthwhile.
And it need not be a "sale of a domain" at all; it can be the sale of "ww.com corp", which owns the domain, without any domain transfer at all.
[+] [-] jacquesm|11 years ago|reply
Next thing you know you're going to have to declare your 'five year plan' when you register a domain...
[+] [-] bokusiayam|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] josephschmoe|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 67726e|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jacquesm|11 years ago|reply
Also, I'm not sure what you mean with 'public resource' in this context, domains are more like private registries held by semi-official companies that you can choose to do business with or not.
There is a near infinity of them, shorter ones are obviously in short supply but to date I've never ever had a problem buying a domain for a new project for $8 or so.