Is the Domain Industry Like a Ponzi Scheme?

[VisionEdger]

I personally feel that the domain industry is crooked to the nth degree & is manipulated bigtime by the insiders who manipulated the values to create these outrageous prices that only the big dogs can afford, pricing the market as they see fit.

It's like a giant ponzi scheme in a way or some form of scam, possibly not necessarily a ponzi by definition exactly, but still one where the people who made the industry runs it, regulates it & profits off it takes your $$$ then gives you back a pittance or less if they must.

Come on folks you are part of one of the biggest scams in online history & we have all fell for it, imho.

Sure alot of normal people make $ on domains at some levels like many scams but who is really profiting?

Look at the big dogs at there big domain conferances, in lavish luxury hotels on jets & yachts, all tanned up with hot women & hotter cars, living the high life blabbing on & on in their blogs about how much $$$ they & all their domainer cronies make & how great their lives are from selling domains to their buddies while you are sucked in to their web. I am referring to the capitalist domainers who do it for control, power & prestige & just like any other industry doamining has its psychopaths too remember!

Its another industry that needs whistelblowers to come out & reveal the REAL truth. One day someone with the balls will tell us the truth what's really going on but why kill the golden goose if they can make this type of $$$ sitting on their collective butts making such outrageous $$$ on words for gawd sake!?

Big $$$$$ businesses like domaining has its dirty secrets like the rest of them & I want to hear these secrets.

Dont you???

:bah:

 

[vc]

Of course you won't profit if you're marketing to your "buddies" :p

 

[VisionEdger]

Of course you won't profit if you're marketing to your "buddies" :p

?? that doesn't make sense!

All industries market to their " buddies" its a collective, they make each other richer. its that simple. Get a grip man.

 

[DU]

The less ethics you have the more money you make. The more money you make the less ethics you have. The less ethics you have the more money you make. The more money you make the less ethics you have. The less ethics you have the more money you make. The more money you make the less ethics you have. The less ethics you have the more money you make. The more money you make the less ethics you have.

Sorry.. got stuck for a moment.

If history has taught us anything it's that the most successful capitalist ventures are not built on personal dreams but on the dreams we sell others. Welcome to the Internet - one of the biggest capitalist ventures selling only the biggest of dreams.

 

[VisionEdger]

also note that this forums traffic has died off bigtime since I started on here a few years back as the people with some sense of business realized that this industry is tanking like the rest of the worlds industry, leaving room for the bigg $$$ market manipulators.

Domaining will go as all bubbles & will burst very soon.

---------- Post added at 06:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:46 PM ----------

The less ethics you have the more money you make. The more money you make the less ethics you have. The less ethics you have the more money you make. The more money you make the less ethics you have. The less ethics you have the more money you make. The more money you make the less ethics you have. The less ethics you have the more money you make. The more money you make the less ethics you have.

Sorry.. got stuck for a moment.

If history has taught us anything it's that the most successful capitalist ventures are not built on personal dreams but on the dreams we sell others. Welcome to the Internet - one of the biggest capitalist ventures selling only the biggest of dreams.

you said it!

Its not rocket science to figure it all out is it?

Some people will say I'm just pissed because I didn't make my millions on words, ie domains . Well i admit it Im pissed I missed that boat as it was such a no brainer but like all things in life its timing .

no biggie as I am wealthy enough already but that's not my point. The point is I want to hear the real insiders stuff what goes on. Its very close to the vest this business because no one wants their cashcow secrets out!

8-X

---------- Post added at 06:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:52 PM ----------

ps; a few words of wisdom from one capititalist AHole i used to work for:

YOU DONT GET WHAT YOU DESERVE, YOU GET WHAT YOU NEGOTIATE!!

 

[netfleet]

Yes I often feel that certain areas of the domaining industry are pretty much a ponzi scheme.

I reckon much of the value in .com domains is propped up by new domainers coming in and throwing cash into a bunch of over-priced domains because it's what their 'gurus' tell them they should.

Fact is many of these experts are rolling in the cash becuase they did this 10 years ago. Good on them - it worked, great foresight & well deserved. However now the .com market in particular has peaked, new domainers are burning cash like nobody's business.

That said, there is money to be made in domains - ethically to boot!

One needs to follow the end-users (actually stay a few steps ahead ideally) - 10,000 domainers can't influence a market forever. 7,000,000,000 end users will make a fundamental shift.

I wrote a post about how .com investment is overrated in another thread (that for some reason has been relegated to the advertising section) but here are the 5 misconceptions:

1) .com domains command the highest prices so therefore are where the money is.

Whilst this is true, and will no doubt continue to be so, from an investment point of view this isn’t relevant. Successful investors look for growth opportunities, not solely for high values – no one would claim that investing in platinum over the last few years just has to be better than investing in oil because pound for pound it’s so much more expensive – the same is true of segments of the domain market

2) All the really successful domainers seem to have made their millions in .com domains so that’s what I want to do

Again true, the guys in the industry who have really made it big, tend to have done so through .com investment. But the key thing is most of them started over 10 years ago. .com domain values did appreciate hugely between 2000 and 2007 and many people made a lot of money. However that ship has sailed. .com values have plateaued or even fallen since then whilst other name spaces have taken over the growth reigns.

3) .com domains have a 6 billion person audience whilst ccTLDs are limited

The size of a market does not necessarily impact values or growth. Whilst a bigger market will normally mean more liquidity, values in domains are driven by supply and demand. If that balance of supply and demand doesn’t change, nor can you expect domain value too. This is the same argument for saying one should invest in rice simply because it has a larger market than gold for example.

4) Most domainers invest in .com – surely this says something about the namespace

Unfortunately just because everybody else is doing it, doesn’t mean it’s the best idea. On the contrary, your competition is that much harder as to make a profit trading you basically have to beat the experts at their own game if you want to sell back into the domainer market. Unfortunately the ‘com is king’ sheep mentality is kept alive by the many people who are heavily invested in the area and need to talk it up at all costs.

5) .com domains rank the best in search engine results pages

Actually the opposite is true… in most countries a Google search will be dominated by results using domains in their respective ccTLD – .com domains often don’t get a look in. Google’s goal is to return relevant results so it makes sense for them to return a .fr result for searchers in France, a co.uk result for the UK etc etc. The exception (and also why this myth is perpetuated) is in the U.S where for various reasons the local ccTLD (.us) has not taken off – therefore .com is considered the default ccTLD and does indeed dominate results.

 

[DU]

no biggie as I am wealthy enough already but that's not my point. The point is I want to hear the real insiders stuff what goes on. Its very close to the vest this business because no one wants their cashcow secrets out!

Who are the real insiders? I doubt it's the domainers of the world.

Some of those might be rich but they're not very powerful in the grand scheme of things, imho.

 

[VisionEdger]

Yes I often feel that certain areas of the domaining industry are pretty much a ponzi scheme.

I reckon much of the value in .com domains is propped up by new domainers coming in and throwing cash into a bunch of over-priced domains because it's what their 'gurus' tell them they should.

Fact is many of these experts are rolling in the cash becuase they did this 10 years ago. Good on them - it worked, great foresight & well deserved. However now the .com market in particular has peaked, new domainers are burning cash like nobody's business.

That said, there is money to be made in domains - ethically to boot!

One needs to follow the end-users (actually stay a few steps ahead ideally) - 10,000 domainers can't influence a market forever. 7,000,000,000 end users will make a fundamental shift.

I wrote a post about how .com investment is overrated in another thread (that for some reason has been relegated to the advertising section) but here are the 5 theories:

Once the taxi driver hears abut the stock price its time to dump it & move on.

A Major investment guru words of wisdom, no doubt another insider too!

As is the case with domains.

 

[Mark]

The Industry as a whole ... No.

New extensions being released and pumped up every 5 minutes ...

( BTW - I'm not really here as a "Mod" any longer , But if you post something in the "Discussion" section with nothing but a one line "hook" and a link leading people to another site - Face it .. It is an Advertisement )

 

[VisionEdger]

The Industry as a whole ... No.

New extensions being released and pumped up every 5 minutes ...

( BTW - I'm not really here as a "Mod" any longer , But if you post something in the "Discussion" section with nothing but a one line "hook" and a link leading people to another site - Face it .. It is an Advertisement )

So r u accusing me of what u say with link hooking??

sounds like it mate! plus if u r what's it to u??

PS Do u see any links to my sites on my original post?? i c one on this one though of yours. one of 9000+ posts too, so if anything u r a link (master)bater from what i can determine, lol. Unless u r being sarcastic of course??




Get off the mod mode dude!

 

[netfleet]

So r u accusing me of what u say with link hooking??

sounds like it mate! plus if u r what's it to u??

PS Do u see a link on my original post??




Get off the mod mode dude!

Actually i think he was referring to me.

My original post wasn't meant to be an ad - really it's not pushing anything except ccTLDs as a whole i guess.

However saying that I can see how the hook & link could be viewed that way so no worries.

 

[VisionEdger]

ok , if thats the case sorry dude but u should clarify who your taunts are directed towards or guys like me will be all over it & tune u up good with "words" & we all know what "words " can do, don't we??? lol!

---------- Post added at 10:23 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:20 PM ----------

ok , if thats the case sorry dude but u should clarify who your taunts are directed towards or guys like me will be all over it & tune u up good with "words" & we all know what "words " can do, don't we??? lol!

hmm.... i c now that they were directing towards the accused master link bater (LOL) netfleet dude, not my op. i stand corrected. its all good!

:hearts:

 

[cache]

if you invest in real property, it is better to invest in say lake tahoe with water front, not some florida swamp. Maybe we will migrate to Mars someday or there is vast empty land on other planet. It looks like ponzi scheme, but those people who are rich in buying prime land have good business sense (you can call it ponzi scheme, but as long as there is demand, the ponzi will go on for a long time.)

 

[DU]

if you invest in real property, it is better to invest in say lake tahoe with water front, not some florida swamp.

Worked out ok for the Disney company.

Mickey Mouse should be the spokesperson for Corporate America. Disney had a dream and even he got sidetracked by the money train.

 

[mwzd]

Sour grapes is all I see.

The people who actually make the most money are registries and registrars. Domain investors don't even account for 1% of the total value of domain sales.

And tbh, you can make money in domains ethically, you just have to stay ahead of the curve. And you can't win every time, which is something you need to account for in your strategy.

 

[Kate]

Is there ANY industry that is not manipulated to a degree and free of insider trading ? :]
Domaining is an industry (almost) like any other, but not everybody can succeed imo. First of all, to succeed you have to treat it like a real business, and not just a hobby or a passive income stream.

As I see it, the Ponzi aspect can apply to domains that are constantly flipped among domainers for example. Or the greater fool theory we can see in action with new extensions of questionable value: somebody is bound to be holding the bag ultimately

 

[GiftedDomains]

even those domains that are flipped amoung domainers can be seen as collector pieces.

for instance lets talk about stamps: who needs a dirty little postmarked scrap of paper? but fact is that some of these stamps sell for millions of dollars. obviously there is a market, there are many collectors, and there are many people who invest lot of money in stamps.

even though no one really needs stamps!

with domains, at least you can use them for online business or whatever.

 

[vc]

^^ Excellent point/analogy.. although I'd like to point out that stamps are tiny pieces of art/history/culture

 

[biggie]

Big $$$$$ businesses like domaining has its dirty secrets like the rest of them & I want to hear these secrets.

Dont you???

:bah:

as one member pointed out, registrars are making big cash now and they have flipped the script on domainers.


used to be a time when many of them didn't play the dropcatching game.
now they all or the majority, have insider deals with backorder services and "auction" the names rather than letting them drop.


this has caused/spawned sides services that monitor these lists with pretty metrics for you to ponder.


practically all were free from the git, and still some are free for basic, but most charge fee's for upgrade.

you're basically searching the same lists, names and metrics that your peers or wannabee peers are searching too, if all of you are going to the same sites to research.


then you have the appraisal bots and appraisal services that get paid too


then you have the seo guys/gals

you have the "brokers" who want 15/20/ or even30% commission to sell your name for you


you have the pay to get listed aggregators

where anyone can get listed and start blogging and making any type of claim, proclamation or statements, with no consequences to the newbs who follow their shortsighted advice.


they can operate right next to a credible source of info, who may get overlooked due to the headline.


you have pay to list your name in my newsletter


you have the pay to join my forum or my domain sales marketplace listing websites


so, the point of all that....is there are other means to suck cash from you besides offering new gtlds/cctlds to register.

and all are not scams or ponzi schemes, they are just means for the owners to make money.


if you're careful where and what you spend your cash on then you'll be ok.

but if you fall for the "this is too good to be true" deal or the "oh-key-doh-key", then for sure your arse will get taken.


though know this for sure...

this is one of the best businesses one can get into, with the lowest overhead and the highest potential for roi, ever!

imo...

 

[Kate]

I hear you Biggie, you can make more money with little risk by selling shovels and picks to gold-diggers lol.

 

[biggie]

you can make more money with little risk by selling shovels and picks to gold-diggers lol.

and THAT is exactly what many are doing now



even though there is still "gold in dem dar hills" (a thread i started long ago on dnf),it takes more effort now to find that gold than before.

there is also a lot of "fool's gold" out here, that "followers" always seem to find.

 

[werty]

social security is a clear ponzi scheme. I don't think the domaining industry is a ponzi scheme. It's more a market. Maybe some of the new extensions could be ponzi schemes. But not the industry as a whole. If this were the case, then real estate is a ponzi scheme as well.... Not..

 

[VisionEdger]

social security is a clear ponzi scheme. I don't think the domaining industry is a ponzi scheme. It's more a market. Maybe some of the new extensions could be ponzi schemes. But not the industry as a whole. If this were the case, then real estate is a ponzi scheme as well.... Not..

Some great points folks!

But this poster mentions real estate is NOT a ponzi scheme.

Man where have u been hiding bro??

The last few years have revealed that the banks & mortgage companies are in on the WORLDS biggest ponzi scheme relating to real estate . What do u think this depression is about?? Banks Real estate & wars! not too mention whatever other money sucking corporations & governments can get out of you.

Give me a break dude. Real Estate is property controlled by banks mortgage companies & wall street! Its the OLDEST frickin scam going!

:yell:

 

[Mark]

So r u accusing me of what u say with link hooking??

sounds like it mate! plus if u r what's it to u??

PS Do u see any links to my sites on my original post?? i c one on this one though of yours. one of 9000+ posts too, so if anything u r a link (master)bater from what i can determine, lol. Unless u r being sarcastic of course??




Get off the mod mode dude!

#1 - I had NO links in my post - it was in my signature ... linking to a domain that was up for sale (It is still a domain forum AFAIK).

#2 - I wasn't in "Mod Mode" - was simply trying to point out why the thread may have been moved to Netfleet .. I haven't been around in some time , But when I was - The discussion sections were generally for just that. To many it may appear a short one liner with a link leading people away from this site is an advertisement.

Actually i think he was referring to me.

My original post wasn't meant to be an ad - really it's not pushing anything except ccTLDs as a whole i guess.

However saying that I can see how the hook & link could be viewed that way so no worries.

No problems Just trying to point out what I "Thought" may have happened ... Sorry if it came off blunt - It may or may not have been after Beer thirty


Great posts Biggie and Kate :tu:

 

[rkbdomain]

I wouldn't call it a ponzi scheme, it certainly rewards earlier investors over later investors. And at some point this will end and there will reach a saturation point. But I don't think we're anywhere close to that point yet. We're approaching 100,000,000 .com domains registered and we are still seeing net registrations increase around 20,000 a day! And this still has a long way to go, as China and other developing nations expand internet access to billions over the next decades. So yes the domain world rewards the early investors more, but there are still many, many opportunities to "get in" on the party before it's over, in like 30 years...