BigCo's out of the web's driver seat

26 Feb 2018 • scripting.com

Another idea I’d like to try is a new concept I call retired domains. I don’t think it should be possible to buy gawker.com, for example, and put whatever you like there. Just as sports teams retire numbers, I’d like to make it possible to retire domains. Maybe you have to pay a comparatively large amount of money to retire a domain, say $10K. But at that point the content of the site is downloaded, stored on a hardened server, and the domain is automatically renewed every year, for perpetuity.

This is a great idea. I can’t count the number of times I’ve tried to get to an old site only to find it gone and replaced by some creepy/spammy search site thingy.