RE: [ga] WLS

["John Berryhill" <john@johnberryhill.com>]

>
>
> Dramatically increase the cost for whom?  Registrars, speculators? or
> consumers?
>
> Chuck


Please provide a meaningful distinction between a "speculator" and a
"consumer".  People who register domain names are the consumers of domain
name registration services.  Period.

I believe that the WLS will decrease the unit cost for those people who
register large numbers of expiring names today, based on the measurable data
you requested previously.  These bulk customers, who have taken out more
than half of all snapbacks, only take those snapbacks out as a "backup"
measure to hedge more expensive bets made through auction-based and other
systems.  Hence, the "unit cost" per successful registration is on average
more expensive than the present cost of a snapback.

Do the math.  Perhaps SnapNames will publish their success rate, and then we
can take the average bounty price at Namewinner to determine the present
unit cost of a successfully-registered expiring name.  I will bet you dinner
that it is more than the average cost of a SnapBack, and less than the
maximum price that anyone will tolerate for a sufficiently
speculator-deterrent price point for WLS.

A single certain source of expiring domain names will be favorable to
establishment of what will effectively be a cartel among those who become
very good at exploiting WLS.  Verisign will get the money for running the
WLS service, but I want to see you two years from now explaining how WLS
spelled the end of domain speculation.

But, with WLS, why do you think the unit cost will change in different
directions for (a) speculators and (b) consumers?  The cost of a
successfully registered expiring name is going to be whatever it is for a
"domain registrant".  The mental state or motivation of the "domain
registrant" is not going to affect whether that registrant had to pay more
or less for the domain name.  The class of "speculators" is
indistinguishable from the class of "consumers" in that regard.



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