Keyword domain or brandable. Dot com or ccTLD. Niche-specific metrics. Domain-specific metrics (age, past sales prices… if any, etc.), there are a ton of things that are on your mind if you’re serious about being a good domain investor.
Therefore, I don’t judge those who tell me they don’t care about politics-related stuff at all.
You’ve heard the narrative: that stuff just fills me up with negative energy, I stopped following the news a long time ago, I don’t even own a TV anymore, etc.
I get it.
But (because of course there is one!) you do need to understand that just like economics, there’s no running away from politics, there just isn’t.
If you think that as long as you’re a good domainer, you don’t have to care what your country’s politicians do, well… tell that to a domainer from the UK who invested in a bunch of let’s say one-word .eu domains and risks dealing with a business, legal and logistical nightmare in light of the entire Brexit situation.
If that’s too specific, think about scenarios involving the fragmentation of the Internet.
Michael COSTELLO (I know it’s Castello, just writing COSTELLO in the hope that he’ll drop by and say “It’s Castello… punk!” like he did when people misspelled his last name in the comments section back in the day… the good old days, heh!) has frequently voiced concerns about this scenario from a domain investor’s perspective and his arguments make perfect sense.
Currency wars (countries trying to weaken their currencies after a financial calamity, the Great Recession in our case) already escalated to trade wars from many perspectives… if any of those end up manifesting themselves in an “I’ll just pack up my toys and leave!” manner when it comes to the Internet, domaining as we know it will be in for its biggest test.
If you don’t know what currency wars or trade wars are, here’s a link to one of my one minute videos that’s about currency wars and here’s one about trade wars.
You probably already know a fair bit about the Great Recession, so there’s no point dwelling on that.
What I’m trying to say is that in an Internet fragmentation context, stuff would happen to domaining that would make past challenges (the post-Great Recession crash, new gTLDs and so on) look like a walk in the park and you need to keep your ear to the ground.
Is there something we as domainers can do to stop such things from happening?
Let’s face it… no.
Our industry is way too small for us to be able to influence things one way or another, the only thing we can do is voice our concerns whenever we can (during ICANN-related discussions, for example, or in other similar cases) and most importantly, plan ahead so that IF (not when but if… nothing is certain and there’s nothing wrong with hoping for the best) such a scenario ends up unfolding, at least we’re not being taken by surprise.
Therefore, yes, I’m afraid domainers do need to keep up with politics-related stuff.
Even if it only means spending 5-10 minutes each day reading the news. I’m not saying you need to invest a huge amount of time, I am however *strongly* recommending that you do something. You might hate it so much that you feel the need to shower right away after doing it but… yeah, sorry 🙁
