It's not really because you don't care, etc, it's just because you're not good enough.
Some people are knowledgeable, others are doomed to be Ruby programmers forever, but that's life.
The other day me and my business partners spent about 3 hours between us throwing around brand names and checking out .com's - we found a name we love and now we are getting a logo/branding piece done for it.
The costs in terms of our time, plus the design time are going to be way more that $250 - so if this has something you want and can use, great. If not there are literally millions of other names out there.
These guys, IMHO, are adding value. If you think not - fair enough, but they aren't selling just a domain. They are selling time saved. Some peoples time won't be worth as much, some people are already talented designers. For the rest of us, this is a great idea.
So you expect to get a logo for free with that logic. What they are selling here is a somewhat pre-built brand. If you want a $10 domain, spend the time to think of one that isn't registered. This will definitely take at least a few hours. Do you value your time? 6 hours spent thinking of a domain name is "free", but it took 6 hours during which you could be doing billable work, at a very low ~$40/hr
In hind-sight everything is obvious. Everything is easy if you already know it. You already know the perfect domain for your uses that's already available - more power to you.
The interesting aspect of this service is as a set of triggers. You'll find some people will immediately spot a matching domain in that list - they may not have thought of it themselves, but seeing it there triggers off the lightbulb.
Sure you can do the exact same thing with a command line whois, but then you don't get the benefit of serendipity. Someone else's list of brandable domains shows an item you weren't expecting to see, and that triggers off your own creative process into a different direction, and you find an end result you may not have arrived at without that serendipitous discovery.
You are seeing the results of someone else's creative process of discovering brandable domains. You don't have to pay for that effort, but you can be motivated by it. The $250 charge is if one of those domains is a perfect match, not for the process of finding an available perfect match and brandable domain.
The route that satisfies your expenditure expectations is watching expired domains lists - that's another source of someone else's creative inspiration. But you either have to scan tens of thousands of junk entries, or have a keyword list of some sort to focus on. Even then, because of the volume, you'll miss excellent domain names that are slightly outside of your current thread of ideas.
Then there's http://impossibility.org/ - generating available domains centred around a keyword. It's interesting, more serendipitous than expired lists, and purchasable immediately by registration. This is probably one of the better "suggested domain name" tools around, though it's just sticking words before or after your keyword. Sometimes an good domains does pop out, but it takes a bit of a graft, or a lazy Sunday afternoon.
Or sit there typing one domain idea at a time into a whois. It depends on your own level of innate creativity as to which approach will reap dividends. Personally, I use several different avenues. This is one more to keep an eye on.
Don't underestimate the creativity and inspiration. This is perhaps a better source of quality domains than Sedo/GoDaddy auctions, ebay/flippa/digitalpoint. Better, because of it's focus on brandable names rather than generic keywords / keyword-heavy / geo-targetted domains that are the current vogue in domainer/internet marketing circles.
These guys won't know what matches perfectly for you, only you do. If the price upsets you, you are not forced to buy even if it's a perfect match, you can just find another perfectly matching domain that is available.
I don't think you understand. By your logic, everything should be equally priced based on its constituent parts, totally ignoring availability, desirability, demand and countless other factors.
Are you seriously saying that if you owned the domain name coke.com and the domain name jkkjs7e98wesj.com that you'd sell them to me for £10 each?
Great idea for them, yes. For us? Awful.
Most of the time I bet the logos (which are ok but a bit generic) won't match what you have in mind for your site.
These people are no better than domain squatters - they're an unnecessary tax on startups.
A number of times now I've abandoned ideas after being unable to find a domain name as they're all taken by squatters, it's saddening :(
From all the possible names and extensions that are available, you've been unable to find anything that fits? And it was the lack of suitable URL that led you to abandon these ideas?
Ugh! These are just glorified domain sitters disguised as a trendy start-up. Please don't give these people your money - they ruin innovation by taking up massive amounts of domains then selling them for huge amounts.
These people RUIN the internet.
I know a lot of domainers (who own thousands of domain names) and all of them will sell a .COM for less than $1000, just because its a .COM doesn't mean its instantly worth at least $1000.
That's not to say they won't sell some domains for more than $1000 because, they own premium domains, as well as LLL.com's NNN.com's etc but your generalisation that a .COM is worth $1000 is wrong.
