The Best Internet Real Estate Is No Longer Domains

The internet already proved digital identity becomes valuable

There was a time when premium domain names looked unimportant.

Single-word domains sat unclaimed.

Short brand names were widely available.

People did not yet understand that internet identity would eventually become infrastructure.

Then the internet scaled.

Suddenly:

• short domains disappeared

• premium names became valuable

• digital identity became competitive

Then social media repeated the same pattern.

The cleanest usernames disappeared first.

Early users secured:

• @music

• @travel

• @john

• @fitness

• @london

Everyone else eventually ended up adding:

• numbers

• underscores

• extra words

• compromised branding

The internet already proved that clean digital identity becomes valuable once platforms become infrastructure.

The next internet real estate layer is payment identity

The internet increasingly operates through identity.

People already use handles for:

• communication

• community participation

• creator branding

• business visibility

• digital reputation

But payments still often rely on:

• account numbers

• routing codes

• IBANs

• banking forms

• fragmented payment details

That mismatch is becoming increasingly obvious.

The next major identity layer increasingly revolves around payment participation itself.

People increasingly want to get paid the same way they already exist online.

The creator economy accelerated identity-based business

The creator economy fundamentally changed what a business looks like.

Millions of people increasingly operate through:

• YouTube channels

• TikTok profiles

• Instagram pages

• X accounts

• Discord communities

• subscription platforms

The handle increasingly became:

• the storefront

• the customer acquisition layer

• the audience layer

• the business identity

• the brand itself

For many internet-native businesses:

• the handle is the company

That shift matters enormously.

The internet economy increasingly revolves around portable identity rather than traditional business infrastructure.

“The modern internet increasingly remembers handles more easily than company names.”

The cleanest identities usually disappear first

Every major internet platform followed a similar pattern.

Early users secured:

• short names

• clean branding

• single-word identities

• city names

• industry names

• memorable handles

Later users increasingly found themselves compromising.

That pattern increasingly applies to payment identity too.