I personally thought it was a bit of a "meh" article and relatively uninsightful.
Today there are still domain forums and domain flipping in the domainer to domainer market, but the activity on domain forums is down and the domainer to domainer market is not quite as vibrant.
That's because domaining is boring... it's not an innovating industry. There is only so much one can talk about regarding domains.
1) Its not a minimal start up game anymore
It was never going to remain small cap start up even in AU domains.
Under a capitalist system asset ownership always flows towards those who can yield the best returns from those assets.
Small time domainer rarely are value adding to domains therefore their ability to buy quality domain portfolios is limited.
If you are a buy and hold domainer you are investing based on the premise that competition (demand) will increase over time, but if you buy domains for which there was very limited demand for in the first place no amount of waiting will bring enough demand to yield a return.
The new tlds are coming and that game is expensive. There will not be minimum start up costs,its becoming a big wallet game. Small to mid sized domainers cannot start their own registry as that cost is too high. The good names in these new tlds will go to auction for most extensions and get bid too high for the average domainer. The registration fees and renewals in most new extensions will be higher than traditional extensions like .com/.net/.org.
If you think the new TLDs are the future offering good ROI then grow a pair borrow some money or raise some capital and have a go. The costs are FAR from prohibitive.
With parking revenue down for many there is not as much demand from domainers to buy more domains in the domainer to domainer market.
The domain sales to domainers was always a dead end... if one domainer has no ability to extract greater value from a domain than another domainer then his NPV of the future earnings of the domain is the same the only possible different between valuations then might be his discount rate for future earnings.
A domain always has to be sold to someone who can do more with it than you if you want to make a substantial profit.
There are still some out there but not as many and certainly there is not the liquidity you could find years ago when you could make a post on Namepros or Dn Forum and blow out some inventory at wholesale pricing.
NF's AMA seems to be going from strength to strength.
Sure you won't get paid the intrinsic value of a domain if you put it up for auction with only people who can't extract anymore value than yourself bidding, but there is definitely a way to liquidate domains at what I think would be "wholesale" prices, at least in the AU market.
I can say in 2004 to 2006 if I wanted to blow out any decent .com name I could find people at least willing to pay wholesale which was still a profit from where I bought it or hand regged it.
Last time I checked this hasn't changed.
Its becoming more and more of a risky industry for domainers.
It's only risky if you flirt with grey area domains. Simple rule, if in doubt, don't buy it if you can't afford the lawyer.
Domaining is still an interesting business with opportunity that can be enjoyable and profitable. The domainer of the future must realize the game has changed, it never was the easy money newcomers thought it was and now that notion should be completely put to bed. It is going to require more capital, more research and being active in selling your domains and standing out in a crowd of 200 million domains and 10,000 new extensions.
Actually from what he has said it doesn't sound like the game has changed, it's probably more a case of the game became what it was always going to become... maybe he just didn't see the writing on the wall, or maybe he doesn't really understand the game.
