Squeezing out squatters also squeezes out anyone without means from domains they're not using for commercial purposes.
I already spend too much money keeping things online. Of the handful of domains I don't do much with, one is just for my primary email account. The same name is registered on other TLDs so there would probably be some demand for it. Am I making a "useful" enough use of it? There isn't even a web page on it. Am I "producing" enough "value"?
Or am I expected to lose a domain because someone else could use it to make money? Or simply because they could afford to spend more money keeping their stuff online than I do? No, that guy can go fuck himself.
It's a limited shared resource, and if someone else would do something with it that's worth the fairly reasonable sum of $8/mo, when it's not worth that to you, then yeah, I'd rather they have it, especially if it also means that good names aren't all camped on by rent seekers who do literally nothing with the domain. That said, I think we should just price all .com's higher, regardless of demand for specific domains.
We can leave other tld's for things that aren't worth $8/month to their creators.
The thing about seeking rent, is that's domain names are not a limited resource, even .COM. Domain squatters are seeking rent, but not in a traditional sense of a limited amount of land.
A creative individual can come up with a new, memorable name. If you have a service about pets, then pets.com doesn't have to be your name.
For example, a friend really wanted [firstname][lastname].com, but there happened to be a hugely popular singer with this name, so he went with 1[firstname].com, resulting in a short, catchy registration.
In terms of land, you can't just create it (and in terms of reclaiming land from the sea for example, that land is considered capital).
Sure, there are a nearly unbounded number of .com domain names, but there absolutely is a limited number of memorable, reasonable length domain names in .com, which is what I and everyone else are referring to when we talk about this problem. If there wasn't, you wouldn't have domain squatting.
One's target audience generally has a harder time picking up and remembering completely made up names.
If it were worth $8 per month to someone else, but not to forgottenpass, that person could just pay forgottenpass $8 per month (or some lump sum equivalent). That this does not happen suggests one of the following possibilities:
1. The domain name is not worth $8/month to someone else
2. The domain name is worth $8/month to forgottenpass
Squeezing out squatters also squeezes out anyone without means from domains they're not using for commercial purposes.
I already spend too much money keeping things online. Of the handful of domains I don't do much with, one is just for my primary email account. The same name is registered on other TLDs so there would probably be some demand for it. Am I making a "useful" enough use of it? There isn't even a web page on it. Am I "producing" enough "value"?
Or am I expected to lose a domain because someone else could use it to make money? Or simply because they could afford to spend more money keeping their stuff online than I do? No, that guy can go fuck himself.