Re: Fast Food Analogy

["Leo Smith" <barter@ntplx.net>]

David R. Conrad wrote
@Your analogy (comparing Fast Food chains to gTLS Registries) is flawed. 
The @resources the fast food restaurants are selling are shared -- they can
all sell @hamburgers, french fries, soft drinks, etc.  They are selling
essentially the same @product (food), just with different "packaging". 
Exclusive TLDs are similar to a
@situation in which _only_ McDonalds can sell hamburgers, Burger King
@would have to come up with another food product to sell.

and Leo Smith Replied:
Do you believe that the analogy becomes more proper, then, if MacDonald's
sell Hamburgers, Taco Bell serves Tortillas, Pizza Hut serves Pizza and KFC
serves chicken?

The registies are selling the same product catagory(gTLDs), just as the
fast food franchises are selling food. What distinguishes one fast food
franchise from another is PRICE, SERVICE and SELECTION. As a selection, a
BigMac is available ONLY at MacDonald's. Even if I like Big Macs, I will be
driven to Original Recipe Fried Chicken thighs at KFC if I perceive that
the price for a BigMac is too high.
Likewise, I may like RegisteryNow's .law as my first choice for the gTLD to
use when I register my law office's new web site. Yet, if I perceive the
price for .law to be too high, I might choose to go with .legal, as offered
by RegistryWorld (RegistryNow's competitor).

Even with monopoly in the form of exclusive licenses, Internet users will
find competition among registries. When only one registry exists, and when
ALL TLD names are exclusively administered by that one registry,  no
competition exists, as is the present case under NSI.

On the other hand...When 20 - 30 multiple registries exist, and when any
one registry has no more than 2 or 3 exclusive licenses to specific gTLD
names, among hundreds of gTLDs, then competition will flourish.

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Leo Smith, Capital Ventures Group, LLC