Rick Schwartz says "Domains... 100% saturation"

There are more domains registered now than are actually needed, so in that sense what he posted makes sense.

However, at the same time new people come online daily with new ideas, so there is always going to be a future need.

Brad

Quality over quantity

He hit the nail on the head, "what we don't have is understanding." Maybe the term casjsjsjj (for instance) will be the next big thing. But nobody knows that. Same with bitcoin and crypto some years back

My personal takeaway from his tweet was:

1. That we have reached full adoptance of the web/domains with the internet as it exists today. (basically if a company exists - it will most likely have a website and domain already).
2. That there is an over-saturation of names in the aftermarket with fewer buyers coming to the table. (only new startups)
3. That we need to look toward how the internet will be shaped in the future (his reference to expansion) and how/if that affects which domains have value and how much.


I think everyone will have their own interpretations, but that was mine.

If that is what he meant - I believe he is right in a sense.


He was smart enough to ride domains through their life cycle - from the beginning until now - and it has been a profitable ride for him.

Maybe he sees a tide change?

Or it could have just been a jab at gTLDs based on most his other tweets.

There are still plenty of small mom and pop businesses that aren't online. More importantly there are plenty of developing nations with countless businesses coming online (although I guess that matters little if he meant "English domains").

But as mentioned above .. there are definitely more domains registered than needed .. but there's nothing new with that. It's probably been that way at least 5 or even over 10+ years.

That being said .. lots of businesses still have crappy domains that they will likely want to upgrade at some point. The right domains will always have demand. The number of domains in demand will also continue to grow ...

Meaning that as all the 1 words and 3L/4L domains start to actually be end-used .. exceptional 2 words will continue to go up. there are 26 times more 5L than 4L .. so I don't ever see 5L being liquid (but I definitely see a sub-set of quality pronouncable 5L's becoming liquid eventually) ... The key is to know what those domains are.

Fact of the matter is that at least 95% of domains being registered are totally worthless as a reseller/domainer ... as time progresses and demand for quality domains goes up, those some exact samedomains will only be 94% useless. (I'm just using those numbers to compare to each other .. in reality the % of junk domains is likely even higher .. lol)

It should also be noted that his self-quote that he keeps repeating is completely wrong ... Domains have in no way gone up faster than any other commodity .. in fact .. one could argue that there has been a colossal net loss in domain value if we include holding costs.

What can be considered true is that "A VERY small sub-set of premium domains have gone up faster than other commodities" .. but domains in general most certainly have not .. and will not .. for the most part domains are garbage and worthless .. unless you pick the right ones.

We are entering a new era in robotics, crypto/banking, LiFi/Internet, entrepreneurship, self driving cars, AI, VR, Solar tech, digital payments and what not. As long as new businesses would arise, domains or domaining would not become saturated...!!

First there was demand for 3L and then 4L and now it is 5L and 6L, even 3L/4L .net and .org. I don't see saturation anywhere, but only growth in domaining.

What brand of toothpaste does Rick use? I will take advice but not everything is gospel. Domain saturation to me is sitting on to many not turning over perhaps he is renewing old trends..

lock said:

What brand of toothpaste does Rick use? I will take advice but not everything is gospel. Domain saturation to me is sitting on to many not turning over perhaps he is renewing old trends..

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I do not take anything anyone says as gospel, but do try to understand where they are coming from and why they say what they say. When they have a proven track record, their insights could be invaluable. (or garbage - up to each to decide)

I imagine he must be feeling some pain domain sale wise compared to the past - as he has been upping his rhetoric on the problems in the domain market. Most of his venting does seemed to be aimed at gTLDs and I believe he may think that is what over-saturated a market that was lucrative for him.

Rather or not that is what is meant - only he knows. Rather or not he is right - only the future knows.

Put it this way, Rick himself is still registering and buying none premium.

Reading his Twitter he says a lot of things and many things he says contradicts something he said a few days/weeks/months before.

Buyers continue to give $50 low-ball offers for good domains.

Owners continue to sell their domains for low-ball offers.

Domains still have some ways to go

When the masses, including your taxi driver and grandparents, are signed up with Snapnames/NameJet/GoDaddy Auctions, that's when saturation will occur.

We're not even close to that yet for another few years for sure.

Great Chinese pinyin names will ALWAYS bring great $$$ re: zudeche.com ( rental car ) etc

Back in the 90's almost no one had a domain, so we were starting from almost 0% usage and had hyper growth in the need for domains.

Kind of like an 'adoption' S curve of something new that gets widespread use, it starts with a gradual rise, has a steep upward movement, then levels off and grows slowly (which is where we are in domains now).

Today domains are saturated in the sense that we don't have that hyper growth, but you could say the same about cars, real estate, smartphones, etc. New companies, new products, new needs, new technologies, growing incomes, developing parts of the worlds, etc, will always create the need for good domains, so there is still a market. There are many great, generic one word domains still sitting in portfolios after 20 years that don't have end users yet. Crypto and coins is a good example of adoption, I'd say those are in the hyper growth phase now, plus they are also a good example of a new industry that has created a need for domains. Also, imagine if a new need for domains is created and gets wide adoption, like being able to send payments to a domain name (that forward to your wallet for bitcoin). Bitcoin and litecoin wallet addresses are a long string of numbers and letters you can't remember, like an IP address, so why not use a domain to forward?

In this age of globalization, where innovation frequently breaks new ground and startups strive to make their mark worldwide, the great pool of initial need is far from over, in fact its never been more crucial to own a domain with a universal appeal, an address in the prime real-estate of 'WorldWideWeb'.

With a surge of unique ventures storming the business arena, where they can't afford to go wrong with making their first impression, a corresponding domain name can never be a compromise but an essential investment.

Yes, the introduction of new extensions might have eased down the desperation for ventures to own a .com, but it doesn't change the fact that with so many alternatives released in a short amount of time, they haven't had the time to soak in like '.com'.
With new GLTD's being an unfamiliar terrain, the businesses have to go the extra mile, to make themselves known and accessible in a clutter of alternatives, which especially the new startups can avoid, considering a warehouse of challenges they already have at hand.

Well, this is supposed to be common sense and those ventures that choose not to ignore it, will have a more seamless journey to look forward to.

bmugford said:

There are more domains registered now than are actually needed, so in that sense what he posted makes sense.

However, at the same time new people come online daily with new ideas, so there is always going to be a future need.

Brad

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"nobody NEEDS more then 64KB RAM"
IBM 1985 or so

4 billion people are not online yet. There are 40 million small to medium business in India alone who haven't quite figured out their domain name strategies and millions of those are not online.

Yes they have to weed through a lot more junk these days in terms of domain name options, but the future growth is going to come from countries that are growing, majority being in Asia and Africa.

Many of the new gtlds are not even real options, so its down to cctlds and .com

I've just watched the final of The Apprentice in the UK with Alan Sugar and co.

Again and again, the name keeps on coming up. One of the candidates in the Final switched the brand name literally overnight.

The other candidate also had problems with the name, and was exclaiming "I hate branding so much!!".

Believe you me he was referring to the naming process.

In a previous task, they were putting on a fashion show, and they used the fashion designer's actual name, rather than the brand she was using. They lost the task and the naming didn't help.

There is a *massive* reward waiting for anyone who can find an online solution to the naming issues of entrepreneurs.

frank-germany said:

"nobody NEEDS more then 64KB RAM"
IBM 1985 or so

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ok enough fake news

not IBM but Bill Gates didn't say so
and it's about 640 KB RAM not 64 KB

https://www.computerworld.com/artic...-go-away----but-did-gates-really-say-it-.html

I look forward to seeing what successful domainers mention, but how valuable are these statements in reality except for the fact that we're talking about it and increasing the exposure of his brand / twitter account. It's sounds like something someone would write while drinking their coffee and checking their email and seeing there's no offer that morning for $500 000.

There's quite a few issues with that one paragraph:

- 100% saturation?... anybody who says 100% means they have perfect data to back it up... for one that's impossible...

Maybe when you're asking for a million+ for a domain, you have less people willing to go into a bidding war as they have some type of decent domain alternative which cost them 50k or less that they're using.

Sometimes and original name with money spent on marketing is worth more than paying a million with no budget left for marketing.

So maybe the impression of saturation is directly linked to the asking price of the domain.


- Asia as a whole is going more and more online. That's potentially millions, if not billions in new domain demand within the next few years.

The new tld's did hurt a bit the .com holder though, at least in the short term. There is an over saturation of extensions.


- In terms of understanding... I agree that some buyers are low-ballers and still genuinely don't get it, and some sellers don't get that what they own is worth at a couple of thousand at least and sell for $299-399. Although sometimes it's a cash-flow reason.


Waiting to see some great advice from some of the domaining greats that apply to today's reality of domainers who buy and sell in the thousands and deal with great but not ULTRA PREMIUM domains.

pokainc said:

- 100% saturation?... anybody who says 100% means they have perfect data to back it up... for one that's impossible...

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99% of those quotes are random made up % numbers and nobody could prove the contrary either
( -- in the style of Mr Schwartz --)

DomainVP said:

When the masses, including your taxi driver and grandparents, are signed up with Snapnames/NameJet/GoDaddy Auctions, that's when saturation will occur.

We're not even close to that yet for another few years for sure.

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I doubt that's ever going to happen. The number of domainers using actively using these platforms seem to be in the low hundreds at most, and the majority of auctions have 5-100 bidders, where usually no more than 5-10 of those actually participate in the bidding above the minimum.

We're so far away from it becoming normal that you just get into a taxi or talk to your grandparent and discover that they are pursuing domains at these venues for investment purposes that I don't think we'll ever get there.

The domain market is so inefficient, fragmented, there's a lack of liquidity, domain value is so subjective (a domain is worth what somebody is willing to pay, etc.), bots are running amok at GD, and to some extent NJ, the drop is messed up by DropCatch's open auctions; and in general, wholesale prices have increased a lot; at the same time, enduser demand has not increased all that much. So there continue to be more, not less, barriers to entry. Of course, these reasons are also why domains can still provide amazing opportunities for those who manage to strategically navigate the messy and disorganized state of the domain industry, amidst all these "challenges" for individual investors.

Corporate entities and huge domain portfolio holders are going to squeeze out many hobbyists and would-be domain investors from being able to meaningfully "invest" in domains at SN, GD, NJ, DC, and personally I expect there to be less serious individual domain investors in the future, not more, and I don't see a taxi driver and grandma level of mainstream participation ever happening.

no panic.. sounds like nothing more than a fancy way of saying that there are domains and Domains... as in.. domainers who mostly know what they are doing.. and those who mostly do not.. so.. no news here.. but no news is good news.

frank-germany said:

"nobody NEEDS more then 64KB RAM"
IBM 1985 or so

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clever