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Red Sky at Morning⚓︎

Preface⚓︎

The title of this post comes from the old saying...

Red sky at night, sailors' delight. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.

It's a mnemonic that's been used for over 2,000 years to predict good/bad weather conditions based on a particularly red sunrise/sunset. A red sky in the morning indicates a low pressure front is coming in and can often bring rain and/or rough weather.

While this post has nothing to do with sailing or weather, the title has meaning within the context of the article.

I recently wrote an article about domains and about what it meant to chase the perfect domain. This article will essentially be a continuation of that post and how my journey with domains has taken a very expensive turn.

Internet Real Estate⚓︎

I think I've lost my mind.

I've said this on a few occasions lately, and will be further understood throughout this post.

When I finished the last domain article, I had just spent $11,640 on the levine.org domain, which still remains the crown jewel in my list of domains. I also left off saying that I was hoping to acquire some variation of my name in a .com, which at the time I found to be an unlikely possibility.

Except that I did...

I was able to get davidlevine.com.

The cost of such a feat? $8,995

This is honestly a staggering purchase, and by far one of the single largest purchases I've ever made. To put it in perspective, my wife and I went on our honeymoon to Europe for 10 days and went to 5 or 6 countries and only spent around ⅓ of this amount.

I honestly saw this as a once in a lifetime opportunity. My name is unfortunately so common that the probability of someone with my name snatching that one up (even for that price) was very high. I took the plunge and snapped it up. Do I regret it? No. Will I be paying this one off for awhile? Oh yes.

Unfortunately, this is something that set off a chain reaction that has cost me far more than that number.

After buying this domain, it gave me such a high that I had to try and replicate it. I wanted to snap up some more domains for my son, which was easier than I thought it would be. I also wanted to get rid of my current alias domains - eighty7.co & eighty7.org. In doing this, I purchased encoded.org, which in realizing its purpose of protecting a bit of my identity by way of my email address, the domain was perfect.

After this, I was thinking about what to do for my father's 80th birthday coming up later this year. I then thought it would be a neat idea to build him a tribute website entirely for him. With him owning a business called Harolds Auto & Truck Service, I was able to snatch up haroldsauto.com.

Finally, I had such a high from doing this that I wanted to find a rare and short one word domain. I ended up finding four - eighty.io, search.cc, status.cc & wired.io.

To keep score, the breakdown for these is as follows:

Adding it all up, it amounts to $28,338. Although eighty.io & search.cc are being paid for in monthly installments, I added the total amount because that's what I'm on the hook for. By any measurement, this is an absurd amount of money to spend when you aren't making at least six figures a year. Hell, it's absurd even if you do. I spent this amount in around a month and a half.

If you ask me why I did this, I can't give a reasonable answer. It was done compulsively. I didn't need any of these domains; half of them were impulse buys.

To be clear, I don't really regret buying any of them; I actually do take a small bit of pride in owning them. Who knows, maybe I'll even get my money back or make money selling some of them someday. I really don't know, but I don't really have any regrets.

Maybe that's part of the problem.

Understanding and Acceptance⚓︎

At the end of the day, what's done is done. That money is effectively gone and I have to live with making the payments on them. I've cemented in my mind that I cannot buy anymore domains, and honestly, I don't even run enough things to require anymore. I'm going to be paying a lot of this off for probably the next year. That freaks me out a bit; doing so much damage to my wallet in such a short amount of time.

What all of this amounts to for me can be summed up in the following:

  • I'm an addict
  • I have a problem with compulsive behavior
  • There will always be another domain
  • There's no such thing as the perfect domain
  • I need a way less expensive hobby

None of this makes me feel any better. It's cathartic, sure, but it doesn't solve the larger problem. I got lost in the storm of my own doing. I had my own selfish and stupid reasons for buying these domains and I'm paying the price for it.

I have to remember that I have way more important things to spend that sort of money on. Again, I have some issues that I actually need to deal with, but I'm acknowledging and accepting that I have a problem.

Although this was a good first step, it's merely the first of many.