A lot of economists find Nassim Taleb’s theories fascinating and I think they’re worth mentioning as well as worth analyzing from a domaining perspective.

As the name suggests, the Black Swan Theory refers to the fact that rare/weird/unique events can turn everything upside down and render all of our plans as well as everything we thought we knew about the world around us useless.

Let me start by mentioning his turkey example:

“A turkey is fed for 1,000 days by a butcher, and every day confirms to the turkey and the turkey’s economics department and the turkey’s risk management department and the turkey’s analytical department that the butcher loves turkeys, and every day brings more confidence to the statement. But on day 1,001, there will be a surprise for the turkey…”

Are domainers turkeys?

Well, they might be.

There are definitely events which could render everything you know about our industry useless.

For example:

1) What if a few years from now, there will no longer be regular/universal renewal fees but rather renewal fees based on the “value” of the domain? In other words, renewal fees dictated by algorithms which factor in elements such as domain age, domain traffic and so on. If that were to happen, premium domain owners would definitely need to reassess everything they thought they knew about the industry.

2) What if something were to make the Internet inaccessible for a certain period? Let’s say 2-3 years. Needless to say, a lot of domainers and/or entrepreneurs wouldn’t exactly be happy.

… and so on.

Are these two events likely?

Of course not!

In fact, they’re highly unlikely.

Ridiculously unlikely.

Yet… possible.

Just something to think about 🙂