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Date: 17 Aug 1996 02:02:44 -0700
From: Dan Busarow
Subject: Re: New Non-Shared TLD's Create More Monopolies
On Sat, 17 Aug 1996, John R Levine wrote:
> Sprint had 877, and MCI had 666. You could get 800 service from anyone you
> wanted, but once you did, you couldn't switch carriers without changing your
> number,
Yea brother! That's why we need shared TLD registries.
> The FCC decreed that such non-portable 800 numbers were a bad thing and
> mandated portability. Now, 800 numbers come from DSMI, a company owned by
> major telcos, and the 800 carriers compete on price, service, reliability,
> and everything except what number you use.
Which is exactly the model we need for registries.
Thanks for the well thought out and written post John.
Dan
- --
Dan Busarow 714 443 4172
DPC Systems dan@dpcsys.com
Dana Point, California 83 09 EF 59 E0 11 89 B4 8D 09 DB FD E1 DD 0C 82
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Date: 17 Aug 1996 09:20:59 -0700
From: perry@piermont.com
Subject: Re: New Non-Shared TLD's Create More Monopolies
John R Levine writes:
> I am reminded of the situation with 800 numbers before and after
> portability.[...] You could get 800 service from anyone you
> wanted, but once you did, you couldn't switch carriers without changing your
> number, which would be a problem in the common case that a business had
> advertised its 800 number, told customers about it, etc.
[...]
> The FCC decreed that such non-portable 800 numbers were a bad thing and
> mandated portability.
Portability is precisely the issue that shared TLDs are for. We do not
want a situation in which customers cannot simply switch registries at
will without losing their domain name.
> If, as seems likely, shared stand-alone registries can't make money,
> well, OK, those are the breaks.
They can make money. They just can't earn pots of it. Big deal. As you
say, those are the breaks. No one is owed a living.
Perry
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Date: 17 Aug 1996 09:30:40 -0700
From: perry@piermont.com
Subject: Re: New Non-Shared TLD's Create More Monopolies
Christopher Ambler writes:
> John, your 800 analogy doesn't work, however, because 1-800 and 1-888
> are the simple commodity, and portability is irrelivant to the actual
> number issued.
I totally disagree, Chris. Portability is PRECISELY the issue. Holiday
Inn didn't want to get rid of 1-800-HOLIDAY to get another carrier.
If I advertise that I'm contactable at perry@piermont.com, I don't
want to have to switch my domain name to something like
perry@piermont.foo no matter what -- and that locks me in to a single
registry if shared TLDs aren't what we implement. I don't want to see
people locked in to the InterNIC, Chris Ambler's registry, or ANY
OTHER. People should be free to choose whomever gives them the best
service at the lowest price.
> The ability of the registry to select a TLD to sell is paramount to the
> marketing of that TLD. Without it, the business aspect of running a
> registry just aren't worth the trouble.
What you are saying, Mr. Ambler, is that you see your business
threatened by the shared TLD concept. Who cares? Why should I care
that you can't make a lot of money off of running a registry?
Economic theory says that enough people will run registries that the
earnings will fall to a small premium over what they could earn
investing in bonds or the like. Once earnings fall below that, people
will stop entering the business. People will go into the business,
they just won't get fantastically rich. Do we owe you wealth, Mr. Ambler?
> The exclusive use of .WEB is integral to our business plan, for
> example.
Why should we care about your business plan, if you'll pardon my
asking? You aren't owed a living by the universe -- you especially
aren't owed wealth. I realize that you and many others saw a land grab
here in TLDs and decided to try to cash in, but you aren't owed a land
grab that you can get rich quick on.
> If we were just yet another registry selling one of any number of
> TLDs, it would be meaningless to advertise, as that advertisement
> would benefit our competing registries as much as ourselves.
Thats untrue. If you advertise your services as a REGISTRY ("we are
cheaper and offer nicer service than the other registry") people have
a reason to use you. If you advertise your service as "Get a .WEB
domain", well, yes, you have no cause to advertise that. Its true that
this will all swiftly become commoditized, but people make money
selling PC clones and they are a commodity, too.
Perry
