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Domain Speculation: Attack of the TechnoPinkos
May 23, 2007 4:16 PM PST
By Mark Jeftovic
I have been toying with an adage in mind for a few months, I think I may have invented it. Itâs one of those âthere are three kinds of peopleâ type quips, goes something like this:
There are three types of people, libertarians, conservatives and socialists.
⢠Libertarians think they know how to live their own lives.
⢠Conservatives think they know how to run everybody elseâs lives.
⢠Socialists think they know how we all should live.
This morning I was forwarded a link to the Business2.0 article on domainer Kevin Ham about a half-dozen times and one sent the reddit comment thread on it (titled âThis guy is a piece of s**t") and I had to chuckle and replied âI see Techno-Pinkos are out in full forceâ.
Some of the comments are just classicly clueless:
âHeâs just a parasite. Someone gaming the system for their own financial ends without providing a useful service to anyone, and making it worse for many.â
and
âIf you donât see anything wrong in the concept of âspeculatorâ, I donât think I can possibly explain it to you. Itâs wrong and hurtful for so many people that it should be obvious to anyone.â
Newsflash: Speculation is any time you choose one path, good or service over another in the hopes that you will do better with it over time than you will the alternatives. Deciding to go to college and becoming an accountant instead of dropping out of high school and becoming a garbageman is speculating that over time, you will have a more secure, financially rewarding career as an accountant than as a garbageman (which may not be true)
The techno-pinkos hate it when they see the speculation of others pay off and compound their irrationality by denying that they ever partake in speculation themselves. Pretty well most productive endevours in life, including ALL investments are a form of speculation, get it over it.
Readers of my blog, especially the domainers may be surprised to find out I have no problems with Kevin Hamâs deal with the Cameroon government to wildcard .CM, and in a wider sense, no problem with domainers buying up thousands of domain names. Yes, I believe the aftermarket valuations are overheated. No, I do not believe âthere ought to be a law or somethingâ that forces domain registrants to use their own names in a manner that the technopinkos hanging out on the reddit, digg and /. comment boards find suitable.
Bringing my 3-types of people into the analogy, here is how they think things should be ârunâ in the naming space:
Conservatives want to see government regulation on content and to see other websites they donât like banned. They completely miss the point when it comes to reform (like the misguided FOISA bill which did nothing to protect the personal data of domain registrants and penalized them for taking measures to protect their own privacy)
Socialists as a rule of thumb, donât get rich on the internet or anywhere else, (unless they are socialist politicians) because to them, profits are evil. As such, they hate it when they see somebody else earning a profit or god forbid, getting rich. They think prosperity and wealth creation is a zero sum game and anybody who isnât living paycheck to paycheck is a capitalist pig grabbing more than his âfair shareâ. They eschew marketing in all its forms as âspamâ, they often wonât even mention a product or service they use by name because they think thatâs âspammyâ (see the Digg comments on Domainwarning, below). They lead strange lives of constant outrage, holding jobs, earning salaries from companies who market themselves in ways they would probably consider âspammyâ.
Libertarians think socialists and conservatives spend so much time and effort on other peopleâs business they donât have any energy left to take responsibility for their own lives. And thatâs where libertarians start. This is more than âlooking out for number 1â, this is chalking up your lot in life to yourself, not blaming others for your own shortcomings or taking credit for other peopleâs successes. Very few libertarians enter politics. Very few libertarians think they have the right to tell others how they should live their lives. Libertarians donât waste excessive amounts of time complaining about how the rules should be. Libertarians pick up the hands they are dealt in life and figure out the best way to play them. Many of them are successful in business and many of them are financially independent.
Both socialists and conservatives hate libertarians. Socialists think theyâre capitalist pigs and Conservatives think theyâre liberal degenerates.
Over the years I have been baffled by the leftists in the tech sector. Because in my naivity, I figure techies are of above average intelligence. If youâre smarter than the average lemming, then I figure your approach to lifeâs trials and other things that are none of your business would come from a higher thought process than socialist mob rule.
Examples:
âOil companies make obsene profits!â
Socialists take to the streets chanting and carrying placards calling for âMore taxes on oil companiesâ or âPrice Controlsâ.
Libertarians buy up oil company stocks and maybe use the dividends to buy a hybrid or put up solar panels to heat their swimming pool.
âEvil domainer owns 1000 domains heâs not even using!â
Socialists post âheâs a piece of sh*tâ comments to reddit and advocate nonsensical rules like âuse it or lose itâ (what and who decides what proper âuseâ is?)
Libertarians shrug. Good for him. Maybe heâll buy some domains. Maybe heâll sell some domains to the domainer.
One of the comments to my now semi-infamous Domain Aftermarket overheated post was âthe guy probably has sour grapesâ. I stand by everything I said in that article, but to the person who said that, you were not entirely off-base. I have expressed regrets over the years that I came very close to being an early pioneering domainer but didnât because I failed to make the last crucial mental connection in my mind to grasp what was happening. I blogged about this on my old blog and I canât find the post now.
Alas, I was grabbing expired domains in 2000 as a hobby and never made the connection that there was money to be made. Had I done so, I would have seriously dived in and maybe ate Frank Schillingâs lunch ;-) But alas, I didnât, I missed the point so now Frank sits on a billion dollar domain portfolio and lives in the Caymans and Iâm stuck in Toronto owning and running easyDNS.
Life sucks? I donât think so. I still pinch myself every day to make sure Iâm not dreaming (especially since I havenât slept since my daughter was born) Rather than slag Kevin Ham, Frank Schilling, Rick Schwartz or David Chernoff, et al for figuring out that which I failed to figure out, I salute them.
Last year after listening to Joe Polish and Tim Poulsonâs Barracuda Marketing seminar, I put together a one page website at DomainWarning.com â10 Things you must know before registering a domain name with anybody. Eventually, it made the front page of Digg and the comments were marked by indignation (ooooh what an awful pun). People âaccusedâ the page of being ânothing more than easyDNS marketingâ Uh, well duh. Yeah, thatâs exactly what the page is. Somehow thatâs a âbad thingâ? Apparently telling the truth about widely used tricks in the domain industry is, especially if anybody is going to profit from it, as per the Digg comments:
â1 thing you MUST know about the linked site is, itâs an advertisement.
Whatever you do, DO NOT CLICK THE LAST LINK ON THE PAGE. The site owner will get affiliate credits if you do.
F***ing cheap a** wh*re, that uses Digg to get some quick cash.â
or
âAfter reading that entire page, why should I trust the link at the very bottom? How do I know the entire page wasnât built to bring business to easydns.com ?
Question everything...â
Well now you know for sure: the entire page was built to bring business to easyDNS. The entire page explains why you should do business with easyDNS. I donât understand how these people think itâs supposed to work. Maybe weâre just supposed to take out a Superbowl ad with scantilly clad models being hosed down like circus animals a la Digg sponsor, Godaddy, and I guess thatâs ok.
There was the odd supportive comment:
âI donât know what youâre flipping out about. The article is good, offers a lot of good tips on how to avoid being screwed with your domain name, and at the end they provide one small discrete link to a good DNS service. This is a good example of honest advertising.â
But the technopinkos beg to differ. Whether domainwarning was put up by an affiliate marketer who would make money off clicks or referrals, or by easyDNS as a marketing vehicle, they called it âspamâ and it was somehow âworseâ because it made the front page of Digg which I find even more ludicrous. We didnât digg it. Their own community put it on the front page. Market forces in action == bad, spam, evil.
The one thing the socialists and conservatives do have in common is how upset they are by the things other people are doing. The technopinkos seem to have more spare time on their hands, watching the comment thread on reddit, seems to be one extremely upset technopinko responding to every thread, belaboring his point, heâs been at it all day while us libertarian types have been off doing stuff.
But these are just two examples. Go to any high profile tech board, read a story about somebody, anybody doing well in business, click into the comment forums and odds are youâll find the threads slanting heavily to the left as the technopinkos run livid. Source
May 23, 2007 4:16 PM PST
By Mark Jeftovic
I have been toying with an adage in mind for a few months, I think I may have invented it. Itâs one of those âthere are three kinds of peopleâ type quips, goes something like this:
There are three types of people, libertarians, conservatives and socialists.
⢠Libertarians think they know how to live their own lives.
⢠Conservatives think they know how to run everybody elseâs lives.
⢠Socialists think they know how we all should live.
This morning I was forwarded a link to the Business2.0 article on domainer Kevin Ham about a half-dozen times and one sent the reddit comment thread on it (titled âThis guy is a piece of s**t") and I had to chuckle and replied âI see Techno-Pinkos are out in full forceâ.
Some of the comments are just classicly clueless:
âHeâs just a parasite. Someone gaming the system for their own financial ends without providing a useful service to anyone, and making it worse for many.â
and
âIf you donât see anything wrong in the concept of âspeculatorâ, I donât think I can possibly explain it to you. Itâs wrong and hurtful for so many people that it should be obvious to anyone.â
Newsflash: Speculation is any time you choose one path, good or service over another in the hopes that you will do better with it over time than you will the alternatives. Deciding to go to college and becoming an accountant instead of dropping out of high school and becoming a garbageman is speculating that over time, you will have a more secure, financially rewarding career as an accountant than as a garbageman (which may not be true)
The techno-pinkos hate it when they see the speculation of others pay off and compound their irrationality by denying that they ever partake in speculation themselves. Pretty well most productive endevours in life, including ALL investments are a form of speculation, get it over it.
Readers of my blog, especially the domainers may be surprised to find out I have no problems with Kevin Hamâs deal with the Cameroon government to wildcard .CM, and in a wider sense, no problem with domainers buying up thousands of domain names. Yes, I believe the aftermarket valuations are overheated. No, I do not believe âthere ought to be a law or somethingâ that forces domain registrants to use their own names in a manner that the technopinkos hanging out on the reddit, digg and /. comment boards find suitable.
Bringing my 3-types of people into the analogy, here is how they think things should be ârunâ in the naming space:
Conservatives want to see government regulation on content and to see other websites they donât like banned. They completely miss the point when it comes to reform (like the misguided FOISA bill which did nothing to protect the personal data of domain registrants and penalized them for taking measures to protect their own privacy)
Socialists as a rule of thumb, donât get rich on the internet or anywhere else, (unless they are socialist politicians) because to them, profits are evil. As such, they hate it when they see somebody else earning a profit or god forbid, getting rich. They think prosperity and wealth creation is a zero sum game and anybody who isnât living paycheck to paycheck is a capitalist pig grabbing more than his âfair shareâ. They eschew marketing in all its forms as âspamâ, they often wonât even mention a product or service they use by name because they think thatâs âspammyâ (see the Digg comments on Domainwarning, below). They lead strange lives of constant outrage, holding jobs, earning salaries from companies who market themselves in ways they would probably consider âspammyâ.
Libertarians think socialists and conservatives spend so much time and effort on other peopleâs business they donât have any energy left to take responsibility for their own lives. And thatâs where libertarians start. This is more than âlooking out for number 1â, this is chalking up your lot in life to yourself, not blaming others for your own shortcomings or taking credit for other peopleâs successes. Very few libertarians enter politics. Very few libertarians think they have the right to tell others how they should live their lives. Libertarians donât waste excessive amounts of time complaining about how the rules should be. Libertarians pick up the hands they are dealt in life and figure out the best way to play them. Many of them are successful in business and many of them are financially independent.
Both socialists and conservatives hate libertarians. Socialists think theyâre capitalist pigs and Conservatives think theyâre liberal degenerates.
Over the years I have been baffled by the leftists in the tech sector. Because in my naivity, I figure techies are of above average intelligence. If youâre smarter than the average lemming, then I figure your approach to lifeâs trials and other things that are none of your business would come from a higher thought process than socialist mob rule.
Examples:
âOil companies make obsene profits!â
Socialists take to the streets chanting and carrying placards calling for âMore taxes on oil companiesâ or âPrice Controlsâ.
Libertarians buy up oil company stocks and maybe use the dividends to buy a hybrid or put up solar panels to heat their swimming pool.
âEvil domainer owns 1000 domains heâs not even using!â
Socialists post âheâs a piece of sh*tâ comments to reddit and advocate nonsensical rules like âuse it or lose itâ (what and who decides what proper âuseâ is?)
Libertarians shrug. Good for him. Maybe heâll buy some domains. Maybe heâll sell some domains to the domainer.
One of the comments to my now semi-infamous Domain Aftermarket overheated post was âthe guy probably has sour grapesâ. I stand by everything I said in that article, but to the person who said that, you were not entirely off-base. I have expressed regrets over the years that I came very close to being an early pioneering domainer but didnât because I failed to make the last crucial mental connection in my mind to grasp what was happening. I blogged about this on my old blog and I canât find the post now.
Alas, I was grabbing expired domains in 2000 as a hobby and never made the connection that there was money to be made. Had I done so, I would have seriously dived in and maybe ate Frank Schillingâs lunch ;-) But alas, I didnât, I missed the point so now Frank sits on a billion dollar domain portfolio and lives in the Caymans and Iâm stuck in Toronto owning and running easyDNS.
Life sucks? I donât think so. I still pinch myself every day to make sure Iâm not dreaming (especially since I havenât slept since my daughter was born) Rather than slag Kevin Ham, Frank Schilling, Rick Schwartz or David Chernoff, et al for figuring out that which I failed to figure out, I salute them.
Last year after listening to Joe Polish and Tim Poulsonâs Barracuda Marketing seminar, I put together a one page website at DomainWarning.com â10 Things you must know before registering a domain name with anybody. Eventually, it made the front page of Digg and the comments were marked by indignation (ooooh what an awful pun). People âaccusedâ the page of being ânothing more than easyDNS marketingâ Uh, well duh. Yeah, thatâs exactly what the page is. Somehow thatâs a âbad thingâ? Apparently telling the truth about widely used tricks in the domain industry is, especially if anybody is going to profit from it, as per the Digg comments:
â1 thing you MUST know about the linked site is, itâs an advertisement.
Whatever you do, DO NOT CLICK THE LAST LINK ON THE PAGE. The site owner will get affiliate credits if you do.
F***ing cheap a** wh*re, that uses Digg to get some quick cash.â
or
âAfter reading that entire page, why should I trust the link at the very bottom? How do I know the entire page wasnât built to bring business to easydns.com ?
Question everything...â
Well now you know for sure: the entire page was built to bring business to easyDNS. The entire page explains why you should do business with easyDNS. I donât understand how these people think itâs supposed to work. Maybe weâre just supposed to take out a Superbowl ad with scantilly clad models being hosed down like circus animals a la Digg sponsor, Godaddy, and I guess thatâs ok.
There was the odd supportive comment:
âI donât know what youâre flipping out about. The article is good, offers a lot of good tips on how to avoid being screwed with your domain name, and at the end they provide one small discrete link to a good DNS service. This is a good example of honest advertising.â
But the technopinkos beg to differ. Whether domainwarning was put up by an affiliate marketer who would make money off clicks or referrals, or by easyDNS as a marketing vehicle, they called it âspamâ and it was somehow âworseâ because it made the front page of Digg which I find even more ludicrous. We didnât digg it. Their own community put it on the front page. Market forces in action == bad, spam, evil.
The one thing the socialists and conservatives do have in common is how upset they are by the things other people are doing. The technopinkos seem to have more spare time on their hands, watching the comment thread on reddit, seems to be one extremely upset technopinko responding to every thread, belaboring his point, heâs been at it all day while us libertarian types have been off doing stuff.
But these are just two examples. Go to any high profile tech board, read a story about somebody, anybody doing well in business, click into the comment forums and odds are youâll find the threads slanting heavily to the left as the technopinkos run livid. Source
