Re: The user viewpoint

[David Collier-Brown <davecb@Canada.Sun.COM>]

Vince Wolodkin wrote:
> The only way the market can truly have something to judge, is if
> competitive registries with equal products are allowed to form.  This
> can only happed through a complete revamping of the current system.
> Under draft-postel registries would start out on an extremely unlevel
> playing field.  Depending on what TLDs each registry was assigned, some
> would be selling Mercedes, while others will be selling Daihatsu, all
> will be selling for about $50.  Wow, big decision for the market there.

  Hmmn:   Incautious creation of (unshared?) domains leads
to Polyopoly.

  For background, this was another problem noted in the early
industrial era in Britain, along with Monopoly.  Polyopoly was
the existance of a purely local monopoly. The classical example 
was woolen mills.  
  Company A started a mill in village A, B in B, etc.  
  If you lived in A and knew how to mind a loom, you still couldn't
pick the best employer because there was only one.  And unless
you were remarkably well-to-do, you couldn't live in A and
work in B, because that took a horse.  The owners of the 
(dark, satanic) mills had no reason to compete with each other
for workers, and so could pay relatively low wages.
  They did have to ship the resulting woolens, but only once,
to market.  And they did compete in the markets.

  We see a weak form of polyopoly in Ontario: car company A
sets up in country town A, an hour's drive from car company
F in village F.  People in villages B,and C commute to A, D and
E to F.

  In our domain example, one could ``commute'' to a synonymous
domain if you didn't like the policies of your current one.
You couldn't comute to a categorical one.

--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
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