Re: [wg-c] lock-in

[John Charles Broomfield <jbroom@manta.outremer.com>]

(3rd message for today, apologies in advance)

> 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?

My contention is *not* about registries gouging or not, but about the fact
that price bears very low on how many entities register or not. Entities
will register based on the inherent "meaning" of the TLD, not based on
whether the price is $20 or $200. My contention is that this natural
guarantee that many interested parties keep repeating saying "price gouging
will not happen because significant increase in price will put the registry
out of business" is completely false. We have seen over the past 4-5 years
that price differences don't completely relate with to the amount of
registrations.

> 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.

You just want one? Ok, ".fm" charges $200 registration. Oportunistic in
trying to gouge radio stations. Explotative in the price.
They are not the most expensive TLD on the planet either... Check it out
yourself. No TLDs have ceased to exist because of pricing though... No TLDs
have ceased to exist PERIOD

> > 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.

Checkout the particular circumstances of that, and you will see that it is
not directly related to price. In any case, from a purely business point of
view, they've lost out!!! It is better to register 25000 at #20 than 80000
at #5 just on the cashflow side... Also, nominet is a non-profit, and they
have always had problems in trying to eliminate their profits. This might
even prove that it is better to be non-profit, as they will strive to lower
their incomes...

Yours, John Broomfield.