Re: Congradulations

[Dave Crocker <dcrocker@brandenburg.com>]

(personal note, not part of IAHC.  d/ )

At 11:39 PM -0800 12/21/96, Bryant Durrell wrote:
>Hate to say it, but you have to ask if NSI thinks it will make more
>money as the sole registry for .com/.net/.org or as one of many
>registries for all the gTLDs.

	A fair and important question.  I wouldn't claim to know the
answer, and consumers often make choices according to criteria that can, at
best, be called mysterious.

	Nonetheless, I put it to you that given the choice between a
competent monopoly service and a competent competitive service, I would
choose the latter since the vagaries of (mis)behavior by any one service
provider can be replaced by the (hopefully) better behavior of a
competitor.  Since misbehaviors are not such an extreme rarity, I find this
a valuable option.

	Hence, I suspect that somewhere around renewal time for my own
domain name, I'll strongly consider switching over to a new one from the
competitive pool.  I hope, of course, that my current domain name is part
of that pool by that time, but if it isn't, I'll probably replace it.)

	Now, switching is an expensive action and not one likely to be
taken by many existing domain name holders.  But NEW domain name holders
could well employ the same logic, so that the existing monopoly would be
left with a renewal base but a vastly reduced new registrations base.  If
such a scenario plays out, the incentives for joining the competitive race
are pretty high.

d/


--------------------
Dave Crocker                                             +1 408 246 8253
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