MatthewSinclair.com

http://www.matthewsinclair.com now points at this blog.

Buying your own name as a domain name when you are not famous can be a form of bet on your own success. There have been several corporate cases where substantial amounts have been paid for domains and private individuals have surely had to do the same on occasion. My MP has http://www.oliverhealdmp.com which is so much less satisfying than oliverheald.com would be. Avoiding the confusion and disgrace which comes from having your name point at someone else's website becomes highly valuable if your name has meaning. That famous names can drive traffic to websites was the first mover advantage rationale behind firms like Amazon investing so much early on.

By buying the name now I incur a steady cost of £8.99 per year. At the moment I am not famous and this domain therefore has little value beyond a vague sense of satisfaction and control which I will treat as insignificant. Still, it takes ten years for me to become famous and by then I will have paid around £90. According to this shady looking website domains can go on sale for hundreds of thousands of dollars but with only the moderate success of a thousand pounds in value my domain name becomes a fine bet if I believe that I have a greater than one in nine chance of becoming famous. Of course there is an opportunity cost in tying up my capital in this way but it is unlikely to be a problem if my expectations of my own success are rational.

The reason why I can get a good deal in this case is an information assymettry. Domain registrars and shady individuals behind sites like "openforsale.com" know less about me than I do. For this reason they have to treat me in a similar manner to a random individual. The name of a random individual has a very low value as they will not bid for it and very few people become famous. I have an ability to differentiate between my promising self and random others that domain registrars do not.