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Why ISOC sold .ORG to VCs

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Re: Why ISOC sold .ORG to VCs

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a dismissal of the field of economics, but of some of the popular businesses and business practices. The science of economics identifies the negative-sum games too. Keywords include, "tragedy of the commons", "externalities". Examples include AirBnB, tobacco companies, consumer IoT, advertising industry.

I know what externalities are. Are you claiming the marginal social cost of everything is greater than the marginal social benefit?

[deleted]

Re: Why ISOC sold .ORG to VCs

#52
Issue #1 is 'whether to sell it', issue #2 is the self-dealing and lack of transparency around the sale.

Where was the public information? Where was the bidding process? Where was the attempt to get a publicly acceptable valuation? Why are the 'buyers' of the asset related to those on the inside?

There are serious problems here, it's entirely possible they sold an asset for a fraction of it's value, amounting to a direct transfer of wealth.

Re: Why ISOC sold .ORG to VCs

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a dismissal of the field of economics, but of some of the popular businesses and business practices. The science of economics identifies the negative-sum games too. Keywords include, "tragedy of the commons", "externalities". Examples include AirBnB, tobacco companies, consumer IoT, advertising industry.

I know what externalities are. Are you claiming the marginal social cost of everything is greater than the marginal social benefit?

I think the marginal cost of tobacco companies is clearly negative a negative sum, which is the strongest form of their argument. It’s also clear they are not suggesting the entire economy is zero sum.

Do you feel the Tobacco industry is a net benefit to society? If not then it’s just a question of which industries make the list of net positives vs net negatives.

Re: Why ISOC sold .ORG to VCs

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Administration can consume any amount of money, so long as it isn't getting in the way of the money coming in the door. Just look at universities in USA. They're not doing anything now they weren't doing in 1980, yet tuition inflation was 7% over for most of the period since then. Where did the money go? They hired more assistant administrators, to justify higher salaries for the top administrators. Also the perks ar…

I doubt even your numeric figure is exact; source? Anyway, supposing that it is - how do you know that's where the money went? And - how do you know the money went mostly to the same place in most universities? This sounds like a baseless generalization. PS - I'm not from the US.

https://www.kansascityfed.org/publications/research/er/artic...

Re: Why ISOC sold .ORG to VCs

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to expand on your one sentence dismissal of modern economics? Maybe a second sentence describing the means by which this happens, or an example, or even - gasp - a source?

If you've lived through the last US economic crisis you might not be that riled up about one-sentence dismissals of modern economics.

Did you "live through" it?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21725341

Re: Why ISOC sold .ORG to VCs

#56
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenNIC would be that alternative root although often are they at odds with ICANN creating new tlds that conflict with their own. It seems like the DNS system in it's current form is broken and I'm not convinced an alternative root is the solution but perhaps part of one.

Handshake.org is trying to create an alternative root that is better (along the dimensions of security and governance) than the current system. I can see it gaining adoption especially in light of recent events.

I forgot they existed, thank you for reminding me!

Re: Why ISOC sold .ORG to VCs

#58
post #18

Can someone explain to me what actually operating a registry means? I have always assumed that it basically consists of maintaining a database replicated across a few authoritative servers and handling WOIS information but this can't possibly warrant $25M of yeary expenses.

Administration can consume any amount of money, so long as it isn't getting in the way of the money coming in the door. Just look at universities in USA. They're not doing anything now they weren't doing in 1980, yet tuition inflation was 7% over for most of the period since then. Where did the money go? They hired more assistant administrators, to justify higher salaries for the top administrators. Also the perks ar…

I have come to believe that the claim that administration increased dramatically is a myth.

Take a university that provides decent statistics:

http://irp.dpb.cornell.edu/university-factbook/employees

click workflow trends. The workforce composition is virtually unchanged over the past 20 years.

Re: Why ISOC sold .ORG to VCs

#59
post #17

How often do people notice domains? I've seen many users use Google or similar to find their desired site such as facebook without typing the URL. If it were only an IPv6 address, would people even care?

Domains matter in email addresses.

Domains matter in links.

Domains matter because they name a thing. This allows us to create an expectation. This is also what certificates are based around. They certify that "The server you are talking to really has this name". This is important because names have meanings to people.

Re: Why ISOC sold .ORG to VCs

#60
I haven't yet heard the point that if .org prices go up too much, nonprofits could abandon it and switch to .ngo, which is better anyway. Many will keep their .orgs even if prices go up 10-fold or more, but what percentage is that from all .orgs?
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