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The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation

blogs.harvard.edu

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Re: The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation

#51

Post by xwdv »

kick wrote: post #26
xwdv wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a self fulfilling prophecy. I used to get upvotes, but recently I only get downvotes, and now that I feel targeted, the tone of my posts gets more hostile. I wish there was more transparency surrounding downvotes.

There is [transparency]: if you're being downmodded, you're either deemed as not contributing to the conversation, or people disagree with you enough to do so. As per Paul Graham: I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement. Obviously the uparrows aren't only for applauding politeness, so it seems reasonable that the downarrows aren't only for booing rudeness. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?…

If many of my comments are still black, despite having at least -4 down votes, then it can only mean I’m being targeted by select users.

I have some posts where it’s simply not clear why anyone would downvote it, and some of my downvoted comments spawned huge sub threads, so clearly not everyone thought they were downvote worthy.

Re: The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation

#52

Post by [deleted] »

xwdv wrote: post #22
kick wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of your comments on HN today have been extremely condescending. Is 'xwdv a parody account? (Genuine question.)

It’s a self fulfilling prophecy. I used to get upvotes, but recently I only get downvotes, and now that I feel targeted, the tone of my posts gets more hostile. I wish there was more transparency surrounding downvotes.

[deleted]

Re: The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation

#53

Post by [deleted] »

mattrp wrote: post #44
lancewiggs wrote: post #3

I wrote about this too - linked in the article. https://lancewiggs.com/2019/12/01/did-isoc-leave-1-billion-o... The travesty is that ISOC has given up a sure-fire stream of $55+ million/year in tax-free income, along with the ability to easily grow that to over $100m/year with price increases - all for just over $1.1 billion. As any r/personalfinance reader can tell you a rule of thumb for endowments is to spend a ma…

I don’t know if it’s fair to say they could have easily doubled but your point about not acting like investors is fair. In contrast, AAA, USAA, and AARP have chosen to leverage their assets to enter new lines of business while Isoc simply sold their’s off. I am not familiar with what governance issues might be in play here but the simpleton like me would ask, what alternatives did ISOC evaluate before taking a buyout…

[deleted]

Re: The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation

#54

Post by [deleted] »

jorvi wrote: post #49
kick wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is [transparency]: if you're being downmodded, you're either deemed as not contributing to the conversation, or people disagree with you enough to do so. As per Paul Graham: I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement. Obviously the uparrows aren't only for applauding politeness, so it seems reasonable that the downarrows aren't only for booing rudeness. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?…

HN downvotes can be rather confounding still. Check here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21653015 I responded very matter-of-fact, pointing out that the sharp edges of Tesla's cybertruck are something that makes it more dangerous to pedestrians. I didn't add any flourish or snark or whatever and yet it went into the grey. That kind of voting behavior just gives me a giant question mark.. why would anyone be hos…

[deleted]

Re: The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation

#55

Post by shkkmo »

Wow, the level of corruption and self dealing here is remarkable. Chehadé was the CEO of ICANN until a couple of years ago.

> On May 7th, Chehadé registered the domain for EthosCapital.com.

> On May 13th, ICANN decided to lift the price caps anyway. The decision was made by ICANN staff, not its board, evading the obligation to publicly carry out due diligence and explain board decisions.

> On May 14th, Ethos Capital was incorporated as a new Boston-based “investment firm”, founded by Brooks — who stepped down from running the 60-person team at Abry to do so. Ethos Capital has two staff: Brooks and Nora Abusitta-Ouri, a former ICANN SVP who later worked for Chehadé. [0]

Then a couple of months later, surprise, .org gets sold to Ethos Capital... Almost as if this was the plan the whole time...

Here's hoping that somehow these crooks actually end up in jail...

[0] http://blogs.harvard.edu/sj/2019/11/23/a-tale-of-icann-and-r...

Re: The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation

#56

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #53
mattrp wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know if it’s fair to say they could have easily doubled but your point about not acting like investors is fair. In contrast, AAA, USAA, and AARP have chosen to leverage their assets to enter new lines of business while Isoc simply sold their’s off. I am not familiar with what governance issues might be in play here but the simpleton like me would ask, what alternatives did ISOC evaluate before taking a buyout…

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation

#57

Post by shkkmo »

Scoundreller wrote: post #32
forrestthewoods wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exchanging 10 to 20 years of potential revenue for a flat check seems like a pretty good deal.

Agreed. A p/e of 20 isn't bad. S̶t̶o̶c̶k̶ ̶m̶a̶r̶k̶e̶t̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶1̶5̶ ̶r̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶n̶o̶w̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶f̶a̶r̶ ̶m̶o̶r̶e̶ ̶d̶i̶v̶e̶r̶s̶i̶f̶i̶e̶d̶.̶ Oops, stock market is 20-25 right now. There's so many TLDs today, the ability to raise prices isn't what it was. Though they could 5x prices and even if they lost 60% of their business, they'll come out ahead. I could understand the worries of .org holders.

The same people that are involved in this shady set of dealings are closely financially intermingled with the owners of donuts.com, the largest owner of TLDs by far. Expect to see large price increases across the board.

Even if they push 60% of domains off of .org that business will mostly go to other TLDs owned by the same people..

Re: The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation

#58

Post by [deleted] »

kick wrote: post #20
xwdv wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There ain’t nothing “sure-fire” in this world when it comes to income son. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Those armchair investors from reddit don’t know the situation .

Most of your comments on HN today have been extremely condescending. Is 'xwdv a parody account? (Genuine question.)

[deleted]

Re: The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for less than half its valuation

#60

Post by reitzensteinm »

cameldrv wrote: post #46
lancewiggs wrote: post #3

I wrote about this too - linked in the article. https://lancewiggs.com/2019/12/01/did-isoc-leave-1-billion-o... The travesty is that ISOC has given up a sure-fire stream of $55+ million/year in tax-free income, along with the ability to easily grow that to over $100m/year with price increases - all for just over $1.1 billion. As any r/personalfinance reader can tell you a rule of thumb for endowments is to spend a ma…

The bigger issue is that org was given to PIR to manage in the public interest. It was not supposed to even be a moneymaker for ISOC, they were just supposed to be the stewards of .org in the public interest. The fact that it’s worth even $1 billion shows that they’re operating it in the interest of the ISOC and not the public interest. ICANN should simply create a new entity that will charge break-even fees for regi…

Further, the sale of the asset to a third party is essentially laundering the extraction of maximum value.

The buyer pays the NPV when operated as a profit focused enterprise, then insulates the ISOC from blowback when it actually does this.

The ISOC can then turn around and feign betrayal with the rest of us, its pockets full of money.

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