4 Letter and 4 Number Domains Mostly Worthless and Based on Nothing but Speculation

[Digimagi]

An observation I have made, and please explain this to me if i'm wrong, but many names being bought and sold on a regular basis offer no value whatsoever, like inflated stocks that have no value.

hguf.com or 6755.com or jlpl.com might seem scarce to domainers, but honestly, if you think about it, nobody in their right mind will EVER build a meaningful website on these domains. Not even 100 years from now when every .com domain with up to 50 letters is taken. They will still have ZERO value, because they are like pieces of real estate that people can look at, but not build on.

In the market of tax liens, every month counties offer up pieces of property for pennies on the dollar, and some of them, are virtually worthless because of the easement restrictions. Yet some stupid people buy them anyways just to allow them to lapse next year when the taxes come due.

Can anyone explain to me, ho in the world these domains have value, other than the idea of scarcity?
Where does the actual value come from and why on earth would anyone buy one other than to speculate and trade "hot air"?

 

[Digimagi]

It's possible people are just "digital junkies" in some regards. Take Bitcoin for instance.
I was actively involved in it in the beginning, and I still believe in it's potential and uses.
However, it's "worthless" as a currency yet it gains and dips in value constantly.
Why it is worthless, you might ask?
Because it can be divided unlimited times practially up to a certain decimal.
Theoretically, every satoshi could be valued at $1.00 and there would be enough credit currency to trade all items in the world 10 times over. So the only value is in the fact that it allows us to transfer credit or debt electronically, but since it costs practically zero to administer, the real value is not in the currency, but in the servers around the world that allow it to transmit.

A domain name has value only because it has a use above and beyond it's digital appearance as a group of letters or numbers.

Remove that quality, and you have "digital garbage", IMO.

 

[FNet]

You have a good point in your first post. Usability of 4L domains is just zero for most of them. But life is not so simple. Because the world is so big and .com is a strong extension, there is a small possibility that some may want the domain. I mean a firm that matches the LLLL.com pattern. And may pay a good sum for it.
Of course, a random LLLL.com can not worth $X,XXX in my opinion. I mean , the real value can not be so high as the probability to be sold to an end user isn't so high. Adding the liquidity of 4L and the desire of many domainers to gamble lead the 4Ldotcom domains so high in price.
About 4Ndot com you are not right. They have a real usage value. And I don t mean only the chinece market. It is the free toll numbers that give them so much value. For each country there is this system. So a company who uses a number, eg 1165 for its real business, she may want to acquire the 1165.com domain. Same goes for 5N. In my opinion, 5Ndotcom domains hold much higher usability value than 4Ldot.com
Regarding BTC, the situation is very complex. If you want to really discuss on it you must open a new thread.