THE INTERNET HAS A LANDLORD PROBLEM.
Domains that cost ordinary registration fees can be held unused and later offered back to productive users for thousands, tens of thousands, or more. We want to document what that market does, who benefits, and what it costs everyone else.
Register. Park. Wait. Resell.
The central question here is not whether domain investing can produce revenue. It obviously can. The question is whether controlling scarce identifiers without productive use creates value, extracts value, or some mixture of both.
Domain → Website → Product → Customers → Revenue
The name becomes infrastructure for an operating activity.
Domain → Parking page → Waiting → Resale
The name becomes inventory whose value depends heavily on someone else eventually wanting it.
What exactly was created?
A low acquisition cost can control a commercially useful name.
The resale price can be orders of magnitude higher.
That gap is the part we want to investigate rather than simply assume.
Illustrative figures only. The research database will use sourced, date-stamped observations.
The $15 → $15,000 Calculator
This is a simplified calculator, not an investment-return model. It does not include acquisition premiums, brokerage commissions, taxes, financing, failed inventory, or portfolio losses.
The case for domain investing deserves to be shown too.
Risk
Many acquired domains never sell, while renewal costs continue.
Price discovery
Secondary markets can reveal what buyers are willing to pay for scarce names.
Liquidity & brokering
Brokers can help connect buyers and sellers and handle complex transfers.
Our job is to test those claims against data, not erase them. The project is strongest when a visitor can see both the justification and the criticism.
Think the rules should change?
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