Bitcoin Forum

As mentioned here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=37883.0) and here (http://tradehillblog.com/2011/08/18/state-of-tradehill/), Tradehill, a business venture which has capitalized on the success of Bitcoins, has acquired bitcoin.com (http://bitcoin.com).  The power, control, and responsibility this domain name gives Tradehill is dangerous.  It's troubling that this official sounding domain has become property of a for-profit company that obviously intends to operate bank like services.  One potential but highly profitable outcome for this is as follows.

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Tradehill aquires bitcoin.com.

Temporary site comes online.  Doesn't link to bitcoin.org.

New site is finally up.  It has "a community aspect" and "an open source feel." (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=37883.msg468138#msg468138)  You can download the official client from bitcoin.com, although it may just be a hotlink to bitcoin.org.  Oddly, no hyperlink back to bitcoin.org is easily reached on the site.

Due to the success of Tradehill's bitcoin.com "community aspect" or services, and due to Google's preference of a .com over .org, "bitcoin.com" takes first place for "bitcoin" searches.  This forces bitcoin.org to second place, and eventually third behind Wikipedia's own Bitcoin entry.

A new client with integrated Tradehill features is developed and released.  No harm here though, as the official bitcoind backend is still used, but GUI is more responsive, better designed, and well polished.  A couple other killer features are added, one being auto updating in the case of security vulnerabilities.

Tradehill releases official open source shopping cart software and it is widely adopted - think paypal - among internet stores.  People can buy items using credit cards and other such transactions in many currencies.  The store owner receives Bitcoins in bitcoin.com account!  You can also cash out to any currency for a small fee.

After years of both Tradehill and Bitcoin success, someone finally manages to break into Tradehill and steal it's wallets.  As news breaks the markets begin to panic and are quickly frozen due to the nature of the problem.

Since the exact transactions for stealing the wallet are easily identified, the whole problem can be easily reversed. Those few transactions in which the wallets were stolen are easily voided by a client update.  People using Tradehill's client receive the update automatically and immediately.  Instead of waiting for the official bitcoin.org client to catch up and reverse this potentially game ending disaster, people switch to the Tradehill client to ensure their money isn't ruined along with the theft, especially those with any BTC invested or stored with Tradehill.

Tradehill's Bitcoin client hits >50% of the network strength. Markets reopen a little shaky, but the crisis is averted.

Rumors the theft was staged are abound, but there's no proof.  "Afterall, why would Tradehill fake something like that?"  Most people quickly forget the incident, but other small transaction companies start to pop up as some people lose trust in Tradehill.

Tradehill cuts the cost to send from one Tradehill user to another, and no other company is yet able to hit critical mass to compete with the Tradehill.

Bitcoins grow in popularity and people become more Bitcoin savvy.  More and more people start doing transactions manually to avoid the small fees Tradehill had begun to charge for transactions.  Other open source shopping carts that allow direct Bitcoin transactions start to become as polished and professional looking as the officially published Tradehill shopping cart options.

Tradehill declares the Bitcoin network too weak due to the mass exodus of miners leaving when Bitcoins no new Bitcoins can be generated.  Or perhaps some new super computer China has can potentially override transactions in the Bitcoin network with pure brute strength.  Or some other possibly believable excuse is made to charge a much higher fee for Bitcoin to Bitcoin transactions to "encourage more transaction miners" and thus strengthen the network.

After such a declaration is made, Tradehill's client auto updates to the new higher transaction fee service.  Larger transaction miners who still "mine" for the transaction fees happily switch along with Tradehill users swept up in the automatic update.  With more than 50% of the network using tradehill's program, this fee change is forced on all Bitcoin users.

Tradehill's slowly growing transaction fees are now suddenly smaller than the transaction fees to send from one Bitcoin wallet to another.  Tradehill tracks your balance internally and doesn't need to push such transactions to the Bitcoin network, so it keeps all transaction fees for itself.  Tradehill only pays fees when you remove BTC from their system.

With increased fees for transaction mining, some miners incorporate.  Special hardware is designed to compute transactions hundreds to thousands of times faster than the unspecialized hardware regular users have.

With over 50% of the computational power using the "Official Tradehill Bitcoin Client," Tradehill and the Transaction Miner companies - which are increasingly being bought by the Tradehill conglomerate and banks who now see profit in Bitcoins - continue to slowly raise transaction fees, justified as protecting the currency.

A minimum transaction fee is set. To send small amounts without losing most of it in transaction fees, people use Tradehill's internal system, or deal with other banks - and possibly even Bitcoin credit/debit cards - who in turn deal directly with each other.

Transaction fees continue to increase until the Bitcoin client is too expensive to even be used by large businesses, and finally, even too expensive to be used by the banks themselves.  A new encrypted system is put in place using newer technologies and possibly even secret keys.  The details aren't release to the public.  Only large banks can use this system.

Bitcoin lives on in name, but is dead in spirit.  People everywhere trade btc for goods online, and maybe even in person.  You can still easily trade bitcoins for other currencies.  If you want to send btc to someone, you do it through a bank, even though the system may actually be more similar to paypal than a traditional bank.  But Bitcoins are controlled by the banks.  Banks can decide to "print" more bitcoins to keep up with population growth.  They can loan out any amount they so desire.  They can cancel transactions for things they don't like, and completely bankrupt someone they don't agree with, or who is speaking out against the power they've now accumulated.

If Bitcoin dies out, we will learn from the experience and replace it with something superior and the world will be a better place for it. Fall in love with the concept, not the implementation.

Your future projections are not very realistic.  Any business will live or die on its merits.  If a .com name is all that is needed, then you are giving way too much credit to the amazing business plans of pets.com, space.com, and my favorite IPO of all, drkoop.com

You are also forgetting that Mt. Gox has bitcoins.com

We tried to register bitcoinss.com as a joke but someone else already took it.

If they build a viable business, people will use them.  if not, it will be ignored.  

OP - interesting narrative, but to the extent Tradehill became the center of Bitcoin-land it would also become the center of bitcoin liability. As the system gains adoption, the international legal systems would hone in on Tradehill specifically.

In other words, pursuing the course you lay out may be more of a liability for the company than an asset.

OP shows a misunderstanding of how the network works.

No miner can set the network transaction fee. They can only set the rate they will include a transaction in the block.  If TradeHill's miners (hypothetical and non-existent) won't include transactions in a block w/o high fees as long as at least a single node will then transactions will eventually be confirmed for lower cost or free.

This is how socialists actually think.

The interesting question is:

What will bitcoin.bit be worth?  8)

Dystopian bitcoin future stories are fun!

And you need to falsely demonize socialists in this thread because?

bitcoins.com is owned by MtGox. Does this change anything?

You would be a good fiction writer.

As far as I'm concerned, TradeHill is the closest I've seen to a responsible Bitcoin business, especially when taking into account the scale on which they do business.  Are they the largest Bitcoin business behind Mt. Gox?

Anyway, I've emailed them on at least 4 different occasions...and that's not including follow-up emails with things I had forgotten to mention or new concerns I had; frankly, it could have been seen as annoying.  They have responded timely to every email, even the follow up ones.  They have consistently addressed every problem or question I have had, and I believe I may have actually been the catalyst for TradeHill's implementation of permanent deposit addresses on every account.  

This implementation was added less than 24 hours after I had exchange of emails with TradeHill about an error I made during a BTC deposit -- using the old method, I requested to deposit 3.5 BTC but accidentally deposited 3.72 BTC because that was all the BTC I had in my wallet rounded to the nearest bitcent.  I wrote to TradeHill about the accident, and not only did they quickly cancel the transaction and refund my BTC, but they implemented permanent deposit addresses so you no longer had to request to deposit a specific amount.

Keep in mind I'm very skeptical of the Bitcoin community, especially people trying to sell me a product or service.  I guess it's risk assessment.  Anyway, I'm not saying I 100% trust TradeHill...that will probably never happen with any Bitcoin business unless my BTC are FDIC insured or something.  All I'm saying is that they have done the most to earn my trust, though I realize my sample size is rather small.

If TradeHill wants to get large enough to the point where they can afford to put up collateral to back our BTC, that's fine by me.

They aren't responsible as should be clear by the fact they're trying to make a bitcoin client with integrated tradehill, preventing the free market from working.

This is the beauty of bitcoin.  Anyone can make their own client app, or wallet app, or any app they want, with whatever integrated features they want. 

Tradehill is not putting a gun to anybody's head and telling them to use their client. Nothing is stopping Gox from making their own Bitcoin client.

No, the neckbeards control the means of production. We need our fair share.

That prevents the free market from working...how?

I actually made a thread where I suggested that the client should be a client, wallet, miner, and exchange account rolled into one.  Realistically, this is one of the many things needed for Bitcoin to catch on.  It needs to be ergonomic and people need to be amused, not irritated.

So what you're saying is that a client hosted on bitcoin.com is no more likely to get used than a client named "virus.exe" on a site called www.hotvirusandcrackdownloads.ru/virusdownloads.html" ESPECIALLY when google (the most used search client) puts bitcoin.com at the top of the ranking pages by virtue of being both bitcoin, and .com.

You're a fucking idiot.

Ooo I like this.  Quadratic speculation!

A market advantage does not guarantee market dominance.

I'm a fairly happy customer of Tradehill who they have always treated well, and for that reason generally a supporter, but...

I do think that they should always (including now) make it front and center on any landing page that there exists a 'bitcoin.org' which is as official as it gets for the popular open source implementation of the Bitcoin software and network.  And that that may be what the visitor is looking for.

Unless and until they do that, I will have a lingering sour taste in the back of my throat about this.

You forgot the bit where Bruce Wagner becomes an a-list celebrity, then gets caught by paparazzi doing a boy in a public toilet. Then he kills him self and we all rejoice.

Um that IS the free market at work.  That is capitalism at its finest.  The free market isn't sitting around a campfire singing kumbaya and talking about fairly distributing marketshare in this new economy.   It is about brutally beating your competitors into submission and taking marketshare by any legal means possible.  

May the most brutal, aggressive competitor willing to take the big risks win.  A-fraking-men to Capitalism!

See this is what Standard oil did and then as soon as they "won" they become one of the most corrupt, ineffecient and morally bankrupt companies that the US has ever seen before and since. If companies get to a point where they are a monopoly then the free market stops working (competetion driving effeciency up) and just becomes a massive bloated orgy of "lets screw everyone over"

You must prove that google will prefer .com...
I don't see bitcoin.com even on the entire first page, much less on #1.

Google prefers backlinks(and well SEO'ed sites), and tradehill isn't going to get more backlinks with the anchor text Bitcoin to bitcoin.com than the backlinks which already exist to Bitcoin.org, well, at least not the whitehat way...

The narrative is very beautiful, but i stopped giving inportance to your speech in the sentence you said Google prefers .com's...

Uh, no. They brought us the lowest oil prices in history.

First I would say the govt interfernce both lead to the rise of Standard oil and created problems after they took it down.
Still Tradehill isn't a monopoly.  Unless a natural monopoly exists it usually require governmental support to sustain a monopoly.  

Neither is an issue with Bitcoin.

So bring on the brutal capital wars.  It is going to take some real money to move Bitcoin mainstream. The potential profits/rewards is what leads companies/investors to take risks.  You aren't going to see the deployment of capital without some benefit to those taking the risk.  If Tradehill is well rewarded for their business skill and risk taking then I have absolutely no problem with it.


The great thing is that Tradehill needs profits to secure a dominant position.  If you don't like their gameplan then don't trade their.  Of course I see Mt.Gox as a greater monopolistic threat than Tradehill.  I would much rather see Tradehill volume go up not down relative to Mt.Gox.

Yes, by purchasing up a lot of the railroads and ports and pipelines and then raising rates on their competitors use of them to the point that they were unable to compete, and then raised prices on their own oil to make more money, among other things.

So?

You really don't see a problem with a company holding enough assets and resources to prevent any competition at all? When companies have demonstrated quite dramatically recently that they do not give a shit about the customer and just want to make money?

The consumers loved the company as far as I'm concerned. If SO stopped providing cheap oil, I am sure competition would find its way in.

Anyways, the only way for a company to make money in a free market is to provide equivalent value. Otherwise, there are parasites in the system.

Um companies are never suppose to "care" about the consumer.  The sole purpose of a corporation is to make money.  Period.  There is no other reason for their existence.  When a company is being "nice" to a consumer hopefully (for shareholders) they are doing so because it increases shareholder value.

What company has ever "cared" about you?  Please I am genuinely interested.  If you want someone to "care" about you find a wife, or get a hug from your mom (that was a joke ... kinda).  Corporations exist to maximize shareholder value.

A monopoly doesn't mean it is impossible for others to compete. As long as a corporation doesn't break the law more power to them. In any new business many of the business ventures simply SUCK.  Have you seen how crappy some of the bitcoin businesses are?  They have no "right" to survive.  If you want to profit then be better than the next corporation who is looking to rip you apart for the benefit of their shareholders.  

Companies that don't care for the consumer won't be profitable for long.

You'd be amazed how wrong you are when it's something everyone needs and there's only one supplier and they're charging a 500% mark-up for no obvious reason other than "more money for us; fuck you". I mean shit, look at Britains energy companies, turned out they've been working together for the last few years to all put prices up on gas when gas prices have been staying pretty stable. Companies exist to make money and having a situation where there is nothing to reign in a company doing so is a bad fucking idea.

Your examples are government-granted and/or provisioned monopolies. They did not get to their current position of power without the violent force of government.

Such a scenario is impossible. It's a scary myth - based in large part on the fallacy that companies ever "hold" assets.



Companies only wanting to make money is not a "recent development," and self-interest is not exclusive to groups of people organized under a corporate structure. Next time you go to the store, pay $4 for $3 bread, and then tell me corporations are evil. If you do not pay $4 for the $3 bread, one might say you don't give a shit about the baker.

Standard oil existed before the government really regulated industries at all, and in the end had to be broken up under anti-trust laws because of the horrifically uncompetitive nature of the company.

But yeah apparantly the people I'm arguing with have a severe case of brain damage or something because I don't even fuckin know.

Look, let's not forget to acknowledge there are corporations fucking people over but it's not because they are fairly making profit from willing consumers. It's because competition and the ability to fail are being destroyed by government subsidies and regulation that keep the small guy out and the big guy on top. There is a problem with business today but it isn't the free market at work.

Standard Oil actually had help from the state governments that banned companies from crossing state borders. It got around it by founding a new SO in every state. Other oil companies didn't take advantage of this and remained limited by the state laws. Regulation did in fact help Standard Oil form into a monopoly in the first place.

It was only broken up because the other companies founded a coalition and lobbied the government to take SO down.

1) How do you know they are making 500% markup?
2) If you know they have 500% markup why don't you buy stock
3) It would not be possible to sustain 500% markup without the ACTIVE SUPPORT of the government (i.e. the govt creating and enforcing a prohibition on competitors).

Likely this 500% markup is something in your mind only.

You're wasting your time. Energy companies receive countless government subsidies. The argument is now bunk. If he can't accept our contentions after this fact, it's hopeless.

The day when we deregulate enough to let Goldman Sachs found an electric utilities subsidiary that builds generators that run off the burning corpses of the poor is the day we are all truly free.

There is no god but Capitalism and Mises is his prophet

The subsidies are to keep them from marking up the prices more, you clueless fuck

Corpses are too expensive. The government can't print enough food stamps to feed our proletariat-corpse generator. Maybe if we write Obama another check we can get the funding we need.

Still waiting on this magical 500% markup company.  I would like to invest. 

Also why would govt pay subsidies to keep the markup "only" at 500%.  Why not demand say 100% markup or simply nationalize the company.  Alternatively why not allow competitors and let market forces drive energy prices down.

Then again I already know this magical company doesn't exist.

I'm about to cry of laughter. This is glorious. No, there's just no way the prices for mining energy could go up due to demand and a need to upgrade the refining process. It's just greed. Haha. Honestly, I can't imagine how long this can go on.

We should nationalize the fuck out of a lot of critical industries - look what private, laissez-faire finance sectors got us

Most nationalized companies tend to have higher prices as they are a complete monopoly with little interest/reason in driving down cost. ... what is the point?  Increased marketshare or profits?  Er wait.

Still waiting for the name of this 500% company ... unless you just want to save us some time and admit it doesn't exist.

I want to see one coercive monopoly that isn't receiving a major helping hand from the government. Once I see that, I'll take this argument seriously.

Exactly right.  I pay a very reasonable rate for my power, and the linemen, management, commissioners and everyone else involved in getting that power to me make a good living wage largely because there is not a parasitic 'private investor' class to leach off of us users.

As soon as thing were privatized in CA where I lived at the time, Enron gouged the shit out of us customers for natural gas claiming 'market conditions'.  And when the transmission lines were privatized in the mid-west, we had the biggest power outage ever IIRC because the 'investors' were pocketing the money which should have gone into maintenance.

Some wise person who's name I've forgotten once made the statement "When you hear the word 'privatization', you better put your hand on your wallet.'

I agree with most of your points but there are lots of 500% companies.

Most of them are luxury/optional catarogies and can do 500% because of creative designs or marketing.  Your main points would still be valid as most of these items are OPTIONAL purchases.

http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-biggest-price-markups.php

Enron is rigidly provisioned natural gas lines by the government. It was a highest-bidder monopoly from the start. No wonder Enron did what it did. In addition, "privatization" does not equal competitive and free. It usually means another layer of government-provisioned bureaucracy filled with crony capitalists.

Of course those examples exclude advertising, customer support, discounting, distribution, retail markup, etc.
I still want to see this company where cost of production is x and gross revenue is 5x.  

As an example the first product in that list was cosmetics.  One of the largest cosmetics companies is Este Lauder.  Their 2011 net profit margin is 8%.  So if the company operated for free (no profit to shareholders or for expansion) retail prices would be ~8% lower.   

People seem to forget that most investors don't care about company reputation or anything and are only investing for the quickest, biggest buck, and are completely willing to let rolling brownouts happen all over the southern US if it means they get to sneak away with another single dollar.

Also, "private" is another word for unremorseful corruption of a public utility. Just subcontracting work doesn't make something competitive like a true private-sector work force. It's just people abusing the government's inefficiency to their own benefit.

Oh no! Another piece of evidence that doesn't agree with my unfounded faith in companies over the government! Better deny it completely and shout "free market" three times fast!

How do you constantly write these little inconsistent posts and not check them before you hit the post button?

Investors won't be getting long-term returns that way. The company would have to be a failure from its inception to have a board of shareholders that conniving. It sounds a lot like Solyndra.

Of course investors aren't going to give a damn about what happens with a government-provisioned company or utility. They'll get paid fucking anyway.

My post is fine and consistent.

I haven't denied the evidence. I agree with the facts. It's just they point to another problem.

Investors have never given a single fuck about long-term investments in this country - everything is about next quarter; and yes, it generally does lead to company failure, but not before all the "important people" get their cut of money before the company tanks

Only because the government will happily bail them out in the end. That's the only thing that incentivizes the failure in the first place. Otherwise, investors going around and failing companies would find themselves collapse in reputation and funding. A world where investors only want companies to fail is a fantasy.

The very supply and price of money itself is centrally planned in America. Were you not aware of that?  ::)

Supply and price isn't the problem.

Distribution that is very disproportionate to value added to system however, is.

Life isn't a zero-sum game. People will only purchase things if they get something of greater value in return. It's economics 101. Value distribution is inherently fine in a system without monopolies on force intervening and giving favors to certain entities and individuals.

I mean, you've played Deus Ex. You know the overpriced Neuropozyne supply was only caused by a government-enforced patent, giving VersaLife a monopoly on the life-sustaining drug? Others could of easily produced the drug on a massive scale for cheaper prices if the patent wasn't in place.

Silly me, I forgot about the intense thought-provoking criticisms of the state in a video game where a shadowy branch of government in the form of FEMA is on the payroll of the Illuminati, who use a quantum computer built from the brains of young women to control large machinery and send mind controlling signals into the brain implants of the citizens.

My bad.

That's actually not the only reason. Part of it is that there is no competition for varying corporate structures. Pretty much the only way you can form a company is with complete financial immunity for stakeholders and decisionmakers and wherein the decisions are made by investors who can dump the stock any time they feel like it. This is likely not anywhere close to the best corporate structure.

The reason we reject the idea that the workers should own the means of production is that they are free to buy them if they wish. But it would be the unusual coincidence where the best investment most workers could find would be the very same tools they needed to work with. Different investments have different risk/reward profiles and a worker's outlook would match his financial needs only by total coincidence. Yet we have compelled precisely the same flaw in our corporate structures. Votes represent both shares in the profits and shares in the decision making. Shares are dumpable at a moment's notice By law, we have inexorably tied them together.

** Read this post Immanuel, because this is how things work in America, and I doubt investors would demand any less than easy to buy/sell shares and complete financial immunity in a "free market" as well - why would they want to accept anything less?

I did and enjoyed it. These legal provisions and immunities are not of a free market. In a fair and moral market, liability can be covered by insurance at some level of the chain.

Perhaps you didn't understand what I meant. You claimed America existed in some sort of "private, laissez-faire finance" situation. I am proving you wrong simply by reminding you that the money itself - the very core of finance and trade - is centrally planned and controlled in America. This is not only incompatible with an operable laissez-faire market, but is in fact the complete opposite. The United States is nowhere near, nor has it ever been in at least a hundred years, even close to a "private, laissez-faire" system. If you want to criticize the American system, go for it, but such critiques are not upon laissez-faire to any intellectually or empirically honest degree.



1) How does one decide what is "legitimate value added to the system?" Who makes that call? Who's arbiter of such metrics?
2) Again regarding the finance sector, it receives free money inflated into existence by the Federal Reserve. So I assume you're opposed to that, right? Also, all companies which receive government subsidies, like oil, pharma, green energy, agriculture, manufacturing, finance, education, etc. are receiving "distribution" that is very disproportionate to value added, are they not? So do you then agree such subsidies to be immoral?

In a free market persons/companies could definitely offer financial and legal immunity to investors in a way exactly identical to what we have now.

Only through violence and force. I don't advocate such means no matter the name they be under. A market that can succumb to such means is not free.

Regulation on the FIRE sector is close to nil and any regulations left are being pulled every day.

If our market wasn't laissez-faire and was actually controlled and regulated, companies like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan couldn't have gotten away with all their securities "tricks" (I can't call them fraud, because the sector has been deregulated to the point to where nothing they did got them a criminal conviction) that allowed them to sell off shitty loans as highly-rated securities claimed to be the same rating as US bonds, letting them make money with zero risk at all to themselves and large amounts of risk that were disguised as "safe investments" to investors.

I don't understand how a government granting immunity to certain companies is considered "freeing the market". None of us "free-marketers" advocate this. This isn't our definition of laissez-faire. We want to hold such crimes accountable.

Would they not have these immunities in a truly free market? It isn't a crime not. How would the laissez-faire government create laws and enforce them on ideas like credit default swaps or any new financial vehicles they would create?

Or is the solution simply "investors will know better and take whatever is left of their capital to a competitor next time, who may or may not repeat the process for a quick buck, and may even be a company formed from members of the original scamming organization?

I am actually curious here too: how would a country without regulation on sectors like finance punish them when they steal money using new grifts or "financial vehicles", assuming the (limited) government can't create ex post facto laws?

So much handwaving about the market dealing out justice goes on here, I am generally curious how it would work

I suspect a "free market" can't work without government intervention.

Sure in a stateless free market, you could hire muscle to enforce your will, but then it is not about the voluntary exchange or goods and services anymore.

People could get together and agree on a set of laws, but that would be... a government!

It would appear that the shares of Standard Oil were owned by a handful of really wealthy families that weren't selling.

Well standard and oil didn't have a 500% markup.
Still it was the claim that his power was supplied at 500% markup.

I am still waiting (likely forever) for the name of the company.

Standard Oil was notorious for unethical business practices. If you're going to go "ABLOO BLOO BLOO THE MARKUP THEY RIPPED CUSTOMERS OFF WITH BECAUSE THEY DESTROYED ALL OPPOSITION AND MAINTAINED A MONOPOLY OVER THE ENTIRITY OF AMERICA BY OWNING AND UTILISING RAILROAD, PIPELINE AND PORT FEES TO MAKE COMPETITION UNPROFITABLE AS WELL AS OUTRIGHT BUYING THEIR OPPOSITION WASN'T EXACTLY 500% YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID" while ranting some complete bullshit that this was apparently all because the government had something to do with it (a claim you idiots keep making with no evidence or proof, considering that government subsidies for industries weren't even issued before about 1940 (and even then only in an attempt to end the great depression and help build and provide infrastructure for the war effort).

Either provide some evidence for your retarded claims or shut the fuck up. however considering you all seem to be libertarian idiots your idea of an argument seems to consist of blaming the government and ranting about it louder than anyone else.

back to the topic. 

Tradehill isn't going to monopolize the market with a domain name.     

Google doesn't give preference to .com's over .net or .org's...  people and some devices do however like your iphone has a .com button but nothing as such for .org or .net (or .biz or .me or dot.whatever)

that being stated,  tradehill isn't the anti-christ of companies.   they are just trying to establish market share,  and bitcoin.com appears to be the way they did it.   

From my understanding (someone correct me if I am wrong)  but they bought the domain name for $6,000 USD about 1/2 a year ago

the domain name is most likely worth about that... for branding purposes... not for SEO or "to take over the market" purposes.

Bitcoin.com is just another flexcoin.com  ..  it's the same concept,  and based on the "trust factor"  that we so gleefully received...  IE:  "it's not hosted on my desktop, it's a scam,  it's a ponzi scheme,  it's blah blah"  the adoption rate most likely will be similar.   It will score a moderate success,  it will most likely have a few thousand users,  it might solidify their position as the second largest exchange. 

But as far as "this is the new client"  and "tradehill is going to hijack an opensource program"  the answer is no.


Every penny of legitimate investment that goes into bitcoin isn't a bad thing.   

Did the founders of Bitcoin not have the foresight to register bitcoin.com at the same time they registered bitcoin.org?

Troll thread, the correct website is only one, the fact that someone own bitcoin.com means nothing if it isn't the right site.
People should learn to check the website, the fact that it has bitcoin in the name means nothing.

Does anyone here go to shopping.com, internet.com, books.com, news.com ...

Probably yes, if you take into account that news.com redirects to news.cnet.com, books.com redirects to barnsandnoble.com and shopping.com is a price comparison site owned by ebay...

Internet.com Alexa ank
Global 2,914
Japan 389

Shopping.com Alexa Rank
Global 1,297   
United States 901

News.com Alexa Rank
Global 83   
United States 48

Not everything is as linear as one think, if we take into account that most browsers will redirect you to the .com site of the word you type if the site exists.

But I agree that there's nothing that special in owning Bitcoin.com or that it is a real danger.

People should freak out more about the fact that MtGox is trademarking the word Bitcoin wherever it is not trademarked yet...

And by linking to bitcoin.com, you've just increased its Google juice.

Not really.  If all internet users were savvy and checked where they were, then none of the phishing scams would work.  Yet they are alive and going strong...