Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. I`m sure this will come back to bit him/her in the ass. DNACafe really isn't that great of a domain name, definitely not $10k worth of greatness.
To anyone here who has been/is a domain squatter - how many offers do you typically pass up on per domain (I'm sure it varies, so generalize)? Is there some sort of offer that you could not pass up on? Do you think this guy would even pass up on $1k. I don't understand the mentality behind it all.
I work with some domainers and they generally price domains by looking at the amount of traffic the domain gets and human factors (such as how short it is, how general the terms are, how hot the industry that it relates to is). As you can imagine, some domains get hundreds of offers, others get none. There are no real hard and fast rules about when to give up and sell a domain below the price you wanted.
Squatter is a derogatory term which has played well in the media. It implies no right to the property. That isn't the case with most domains. You register the name, you pay for it. It's your name. The usage of squatting got it's start basically with people doing typos or grabbing famous names (panavision.com) who basically had no right at all to a famous trademark and were trying to extort money. It simply doesn't apply to a name like dnacafe.com in this particular situation. There is of course a company called dnamededcafe.com and it would be possible to start a cafe somewhere called dnacafe.com that has no affiliation with dnalounge.com. And dnalounge.com clearly calls itself dna lounge in it's logo. Not dna cafe.
Squatter is a derogatory term, and I would lump in anyone who intentionally buys a domain with no intent to use it other than to sell it at an increased profit margin. I guess you and me differ here, you may think it's okay and perhaps it's the market at play, but I think it's just sleazy way to make money. Squatting has made it nearly impossible to come up with a decent brand. This is just my opinion, you don't have to agree with it and you're well within your right to squat on domains, but you can't really argue semantics here when it's entirely opinionated.
You're assuming that if the "squatter" hadn't bought the name it would be available for you to use exactly when you wanted to use it. It's also possible that someone would buy it and use it for a business or personal use and then it would actually either not be available at all at any price for you or you'd have to pay more money for the name then a squatter would have charged.
Here's another different example.
Someone buys up land near a proposed hiway exit. And then they hold out until a fast food chain wants to buy the land for the restaurant and pay the price that a large corporation can pay for that type of land. Somebody made money on that transaction. But the small restaurant is upset because "all the good land is taken by squatters and I can't locate my restaurant there because I can't pay the price what gives them the right to charge me all that money.".
To anyone here who has been/is a domain squatter - how many offers do you typically pass up on per domain (I'm sure it varies, so generalize)? Is there some sort of offer that you could not pass up on? Do you think this guy would even pass up on $1k. I don't understand the mentality behind it all.