Re: [wg-c] lock-in

[Milton Mueller <mueller@syr.edu>]

John Charles Broomfield wrote:

> Real substantive examples:
> Internic fees went from $0 to $100 (and then to $70). Quite an increase.
> Didn't kill NSI. Quite the contrary. NSI is now a multimillion value
> company. ".com" is still growing like crazy.

These "substantive" examples are so weak as to be laughable. Yes, there was a
period in the mid-90s when people stopped giving away domain names for free and
started charging for them. Is it your contention that the US National Science
Foundation was gouging customers when it authorized charging?

Can you provide a single example of a commercial registry or even a non-commercial
one that has, since it started charging, engaged in exploitative and opportunistic
behavior? You've got four years and 250 TLDs to work with. Just one, please.

> I see no indication that an substantial relative increase in pricing in
> domain name registration would have significant impact in the amount of
> names registered by that registry.

Nominet reduced its price from 20 pounds to 5 pounds and registered 200,000 domain
names in two months. The per month rate went from about 25,000 to 111,000 in
September and to 80,000 in October.

> are between $1 and $5. However, *ANY* company that wants to have internet
> presence is not going to feel at all bothered by having to pay $10 or $100
> for their domain name (registrations haven't shot up because of price drops,
> nor have they gone away because of price increases).

Wrong. See above.http://www.nominet.org.uk/news/stats/

We're still waiting for examples of price increases. And by the way, NSI and most
country codes haven't been operating in a market as competitive as it could be.