Re: [wg-c] Possible solution to lock in?

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Fri, Nov 19, 1999 at 02:02:16PM -0500, Harold Feld wrote:
> Why isn't the solution to the lock-in problem simply
> getting a new name, while keeping the old one, and gradually
> migrating off?

Because it doesn't work.

You are amazon.com.  Your domain name is bookmarked in a hundred
million browsers, search engines, linked in a million pages around
the world.  NSI says, hmm, amazon, we are changing to a usage based
model of charging because it is more fair to the little guy, and our
measurements show that your domain is very frequently hit, and
therefore your domain name will cost you $100,045.39, next year. 
This amount would cover 100,000/35, or about 2800 years of
registration at the old rate of $35/year.  On the other hand, those
millions of references that are embedded in the web won't clear out
for years, and it will be much longer than one year for amazon.biz to
become anywhere near as well-known as amazon.com. 

>  No need to engage in expensive and inconvenient
> renumbering of your network, and the old name still works.

Nope.  The old name doesn't work, because you didn't pay your 
$100000, and NSI cut you off.

> We do this with email now, for example, with a minimum of fuss.
> All my future business cards tell people to email me at hfeld@mediaaccess.org,
> while folks who have been emailing me at hfeld@essential.org still reach me.

If your domain at essential.org was cut off, they wouldn't reach you.

In fact, of course, amazon.com has the legal resources to fight such 
an egregious move.  But a registry can increase profits by 50% by 
simply raising the already cheap price of domain names for their 
locked in customers.

The problem is that there is an *enormous* disparity between the
value of a domain name to a registrant on the one hand, and the
actual cost of maintaining the registration on the other hand.  
Wannabe registries would love to move to value-based pricing, and 
will use any opportunity to move in that direction.  Consumers 
welfare, on the other hand, is served by cost-based pricing.

-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Do good, and you'll be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain