Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Attempted Corporate Takeover of .Org

prospect.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 153 posts

Re: The Attempted Corporate Takeover of .Org

#61

Post by pdimitar »

byuu wrote: post #14
iameli wrote: post #4

> Verisign controls the registries for .com and .net, two of the internet’s most popular. All it does is administer a database and collect small sums from website owners, but with computing power rising and practically no marginal cost to adding another website to the database, the entire enterprise is a license to print money. In the third quarter of 2019, Verisign showed operating income of $205.6 million on $308.4…

The problem is you can't move a domain once you've established it. I'm stuck on byuu.org for life. There's 15 years worth of links to it scattered across the web that would all go dark. Or more precisely, that would all suddenly point at spam. I could never get most of them updated. Even my subdomain from my previous host from 15 years ago is squatted to this day to serve up advertising. It's even aware of the softwa…

There are many examples that I am currently too lazy to point at that clearly prove that "lifetime license" or "lifetime guarantee" are promises that are basically never kept.

Your idea would turn into yet another way to extract even more money from customers without actually bringing additional value (or guarantees) to the table. :(

Re: The Attempted Corporate Takeover of .Org

#62

Post by twic »

teruakohatu wrote: post #2

It seems that over time any sufficiently well funded non-profit will eventually hire a financial engineer as CEO and transform into a Hedge Fund with some sort of charitable appendage.

You may enjoy this story about Bremer Bank:

https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/opinion/articles/2020-01-21/ba...

Re: The Attempted Corporate Takeover of .Org

#63

Post by jdkee »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #38
teruakohatu wrote: post #2

It seems that over time any sufficiently well funded non-profit will eventually hire a financial engineer as CEO and transform into a Hedge Fund with some sort of charitable appendage.

America's well-endowed universities seem like a perfect example of human greed. They have amassed so much money that they could seriously invest in furthering their ostensible mission — education — yet they'd rather just obsess over making sure the big pile of money only grows bigger.

From Jordan Weissmann writing at Slate:

“The joke about Harvard is that it’s a hedge fund with a university attached to it,” Mark Schneider tells me.

https://www.businessinsider.com/why-harvard-should-be-taxed-...

Re: The Attempted Corporate Takeover of .Org

#64

Post by frandroid »

dang wrote: post #9

I think these are the major related threads so far. In reverse order: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21931258 - The NRO Issues Inspection Request to ICANN Concerning .ORG Sale https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21800085 - ICANN Delays .ORG Sale Approval https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21723682 - Why ISOC sold .ORG to VCs https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21689121 - The .Org Fire Sale: How it sold for…

It's almost as if HN could use a tagging system... :)

Re: The Attempted Corporate Takeover of .Org

#65

Post by cptskippy »

kick wrote: post #57
cptskippy wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (despite the tabloid-like headline) I like everything about The Register but the cheezy headlines, nicknames, and bad photoshop are some of the best parts.

I mean, I enjoy it for personal consumption. It makes it way harder to seriously share, though!

What do you mean? Headlines like "Yabba Dabba Doo it's the iPad 2" scream professionalism.

Re: The Attempted Corporate Takeover of .Org

#67

Post by Retric »

kortilla wrote: post #39
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alas the Internet was created in a capitalist world, and capitalism loves rent-seeking.

Rent seeking would require the new owner to not really be doing anything (I.e. not operating the tld nameservers, etc) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking Just paying recurring fees (e.g. paying rent to your landlord) does not match the definition of rent-seeking.

Operating the .org domain is not creating new wealth. It’s the same as a VA selling toll roads or someone buys old songs. They all spend some money maximize their income stream. However, that spending is not creating something useful.

Operations spending is required, but does not generate any long term wealth. You keep cleaning a hotel ever day and it does not get ever cleaner over time the way an actual investment does when you keep investing more money.

Re: The Attempted Corporate Takeover of .Org

#68

Post by chaostheory »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #36
brandon272 wrote: post #12

Something has gone seriously wrong when one of our original TLDs, which, from my perspective, should be considered sacrosanct elements of the internet with historical importance, are able to be sold off by interloping individuals, who, for some bizarre reason, feel that they are entitled to capitalize on these TLDs, and who do so purely with their own self-interest at heart. I'm really just disappointed and angered t…

Alas the Internet was created in a capitalist world, and capitalism loves rent-seeking.

Would it be any different in a non-capitalist world? If we’re being honest, corruption eventually permeates everything given time. IMO the biggest difference between capitalism and socialism is the massive centralization of power in socialist systems. The effects of corruption tend to be much worse the more power is concentrated. These systems of finite resource distribution are ultimately just hacks to mitigate the real problem: people or individual nodes tend to seek the optimal outcome for themselves even if it’s at the expense of the system as a whole

Everyone tends to forget that sociopaths adapt

Re: The Attempted Corporate Takeover of .Org

#69

Post by kick »

cptskippy wrote: post #65
kick wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I enjoy it for personal consumption. It makes it way harder to seriously share, though!

What do you mean? Headlines like "Yabba Dabba Doo it's the iPad 2" scream professionalism.

Upon further consideration, you're absolutely right.

Re: The Attempted Corporate Takeover of .Org

#70

Post by jrochkind1 »

This article explained some things clearly.

ISOC didn't "buy" the rights to administer .org in the first place. They were given it. Along with $5 million actually; they paid, like, negative for it, they were paid to take it.

Now they get to sell it for $1.1 billion? How does that make any sense at all?

We're literally at "Russian oligarch-type" transaction here. America!

Post reply on HN