Re: That's odd, we've been assuming only one business model...

[Vince Wolodkin <wolodkin@digitalink.com>]

Thank you!  I have been trying to make this point for some time, but you
have stated it very well.  Paying per transaction is in my mind, the
ONLY model that works.  In this way no registry "owns" an SLD.  Domain
holders would be totally free to use any registry at any time.  Choice
of registry would be solely motivated by price/performance and service.  

This is why all new iTLDs should be shared.  Any new registry should be
allowed to register SLDs in any new iTLD and eventually in .COM as
well.  This keeps the namespace free.  

Vince Wolodkin

David Collier-Brown wrote:
> 
> Discussion of draft-iahc-stldtech-crispin-00.txt and my previous
> chase for bogus assumptions in appreciations triggered a thought...
> 
>   We speak of ``a time reflecting the amount of time that has been paid
> for'', implicitly assuming that the business model invented by NSI
> was the correct one.
> 
>   I, too, have assumed in my work on sdmp that we were **renting out
> time in a domain we owned**.
>   Yet we have seen at least one message in this group suggesting
> that one could also do business on a per-update fee basis.
> ``Opening special: $10 for updates to .xyz, this month only!''.
> 
>   I'm sure Bob could make a case that the registree/customer is
> the owner in every sense of the bottom-level domain and its name, and I
> could easily argue that the top-level domains are a public trust, much
> like a public road connecting to private physical property.
> 
>   If one made such assumptions, the business model would be
> very different.  A fee-for-service registry would be immensely
> less attractive, because it would not have an income based on the
> number of domains, but instead the number of changes in domains,
> a much smaller number.
>   And I could, would, and do argue that making changes is what the
> NSF hired NSI to do...
> 
>   Although it would be disappointing to registries who wished
> to ``buy'' portions of the namespace, as per draft-postel, it
> is far closer to the normal assumptions of the 'net to consider
> the namespace a public trust and good.
>   And it is not a terrible thing, just a annoying one: as
> various commentators have pointed out, ond does not need to have
> invest a lot of money in setting up a registry, so the
> reduction in income is not particularly onerous.  And one
> doesn't need to do much to one's busines plan or one's software
> to switch to serving folks for a fee: after all, most of the
> proposed registries are ISPs or are offshoots of ones, all of
> whom do business on a similar basis.
> 
>   The implications of considering top-level domains a public
> trust also include the possibility of regarding (for a particular
> definition of leaf) all non-leaf domains part of the public
> property of the world.
>   If the definition of leaf is ``belongs to an organization,
> business or individual which is not in the business of offering
> the namespace for a fee'', then we might have a means of arguing
> against domain hoarding, piracy and the like.
>   I freely admit that this last speculation is off-topic for this
> group(:-))
> 
> --dave
> --
> David Collier-Brown,  | Always do right. This will gratify some people
> 185 Ellerslie Ave.,   | astonish the rest.        -- Mark Twain
> Willowdale, Ontario   | davecb@hobbes.ss.org, canada.sun.com
> N2M 1Y3. 416-223-8968 | http://java.science.yorku.ca/~davecb