• nonstopshirtflutter@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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    1 year ago

    The only thing I can remember is this person who bragged about buying few domain-names and just waiting them to go up in price. I can almost understand companies issuing SSL certs selling domains, or having some services along those domains.

    But in this instance it was a national domain, meaning the state handled the top-level domain and all infrastructure and work related to keeping tabs on the domain names. What they did was buy general words when they were cheap and popular, and just sat on the domain name for all this time. They still haven’t done fuck all with any of them, just waiting someone else to go through with the business plan they thought for five seconds some decade ago, and then extort that company for money.

    So taking limited resources as a speculative investment is the only thing. Generally any form of investment where you expect to extract money for doing absolutely nothing except having an idea and paying some of your pre-existing money to hoard it.

    You aren’t even inventing an idea at that point. Infact, you are relying on the idea being obvious enough that someone in the future will actually do something along those lines. It’s not an innovation. Absolutely nothing happened outside your own head until you swooped in to charge a fee on someone that actually did something.

    • floofloof@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      It’s even worse when the investment is in something that affects other people’s lives fundamentally, like people who buy a bunch of housing properties just to make money off the increase in property prices and rents.

    • ThrowawayPermanente@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      This is very similar to land speculation and the solution is the same one Henry George gave us over 100 years ago - tax it until speculation is no longer profitable.

    • Solivine@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Yeah! Fuck people and… taking money from corporations??? (/s if not clear)