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Let ICANN know if you support .com price hikes

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Re: Let ICANN know if you support .com price hikes

#61

Post by franga2000 »

kortilla wrote: post #46
franga2000 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the squatters have to do that, then their squatting has no value to them. The point of squatters is to eventually sell the domain and if all the domains look "in use" (so no parking allowed), the amount of people sending offers will fall.

What a joke, within days of such rules being announced, a system would emerge to discover which domains might be willing to sell even though they would put up an “in-use” page.

Still much better than the current system. At least users who aren't familiar with it would just see the domain is "taken" and move along, not see a billion ads and a "contact us to buy" button. I've seen people who didn't even realize that was "outside the system" and thought that's how domains are supposed to be sold.

And either way, even a bad countermeasure would be better than nothing, as it would show that squatting is not longer tolerated. It would set a precedent for stricter regulation later on, because as it stands right now, ICANN is actively ignoring the problem and happily collecting their 14¢ fees.

As for a better solution, first ban all advertisement of peer-to-peer sales of domain names (so only registrars may offer a domain for sale). That should improve the situation significantly.

Re: Let ICANN know if you support .com price hikes

#62

Post by buboard »

StavrosK wrote: post #6

I kind of want the price to increase, to combat domain squatting. That said, I'd much prefer it if the money went to some charity instead of the ICANN.

No the solution is to drop the price by an order of magnitude. Every domain will be squatted, but due to naturally intense competition, they will cost $2. Make squatting unprofitable again.

(There is nothing inherently wrong with squatting)

Re: Let ICANN know if you support .com price hikes

#63

Post by franga2000 »

anonsivalley652 wrote: post #39
franga2000 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the squatters have to do that, then their squatting has no value to them. The point of squatters is to eventually sell the domain and if all the domains look "in use" (so no parking allowed), the amount of people sending offers will fall.

The "domain squatting" meme is intellectually dishonest and based on envy. People who buy zillions of domains must be allowed if people are allowed to buy as many stamps, boxes of paper, cars, jet skis or houses as they wish. It's called freedom, property rights and being consistent. If you want one of their domains that they registered and paid for before you so badly, inquire if they will sell it; if they choose to…

The difference between domain names and let's say cars or boxes of paper, as you put it, is so obvious, I didn't think it needed saying. It's that (usable) domains are a unique and finite, whereas all your other examples are neither. You can't just wait for the next batch of domains to come out of the factory and buy them from their manufacturer (new gTLDs were an attempt at that and failed miserably).

It's the same problem as land. We have more and more people that need it, yet the supply is by definition finite. Hoarding it for yourself not only contributes nothing to the community, it actively prevents others from doing so.

Re: Let ICANN know if you support .com price hikes

#64

Post by buboard »

jasonjayr wrote: post #54
anonsivalley652 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's irrelevant. Local control doesn't apply to a global, shared resource. And, that mismatched metaphor describes infringement on individual property rights because you can't have it both ways. There can be only one internet namespace if it's to operate correctly, and it can't be controlled by corporations or greedy individuals who think they should get things other people had, and paid for, before them. If you wa…

It becomes a "tragedy of the commons" situation unless there is some regulation of this one shared namespace. Even the FCC has "use it or lose it" rules in place for the limited wireless spectrum. I mean, isn't that what's happening with property in real life? The ones that can afford to do so keep buying it up, and renting it out, and perpetuating the cycle of inequity?

There is no tragedy of the commons here, its the opposite, people create value on previously worthless dns-land. There is no shortage of TLDs, instead an infinite supply, so its not a zero sum game. Of course demand and supply applies

Housing and spectrum are inherently limited so it makes sense to have ‘homesteading’ rules, especially when they are not even rented out

Re: Let ICANN know if you support .com price hikes

#65

Post by jasonjayr »

buboard wrote: post #64
jasonjayr wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It becomes a "tragedy of the commons" situation unless there is some regulation of this one shared namespace. Even the FCC has "use it or lose it" rules in place for the limited wireless spectrum. I mean, isn't that what's happening with property in real life? The ones that can afford to do so keep buying it up, and renting it out, and perpetuating the cycle of inequity?

There is no tragedy of the commons here, its the opposite, people create value on previously worthless dns-land. There is no shortage of TLDs, instead an infinite supply, so its not a zero sum game. Of course demand and supply applies Housing and spectrum are inherently limited so it makes sense to have ‘homesteading’ rules, especially when they are not even rented out

There really isn't an infinite supply though. There are desirable properties of a domain, including memorability (length of domain, typability, common words).

Sure, something like "eebe8X.com" is usable, but it's not very desirable.

Re: Let ICANN know if you support .com price hikes

#66

Post by ryanlol »

toyg wrote: post #60
anonsivalley652 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "domain squatting" meme is intellectually dishonest and based on envy. People who buy zillions of domains must be allowed if people are allowed to buy as many stamps, boxes of paper, cars, jet skis or houses as they wish. It's called freedom, property rights and being consistent. If you want one of their domains that they registered and paid for before you so badly, inquire if they will sell it; if they choose to…

Domains are real estate. Periodic land reform / redistribution is a staple of human history, when things become patently unbalanced for society as a whole.

Is domain distribution patently unbalanced for society as a whole? What does that even mean? Should everyone be able to get a short dictionary word .com domain?

Re: Let ICANN know if you support .com price hikes

#67

Post by ryanlol »

bobbydroptables wrote: post #57
kortilla wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone else has a personal page with my last name under .com. Squatter or not, I don’t get to use it. I don’t see how squatters make it any different.

>I don’t see how squatters make it any different. Because one person is using it for it's legitimate intended purpose and one person is using it as a speculator (and blocking legitimate use without paying a toll). Should someone be able to buy all existing insulin and then charge a toll to use it at a price closer to it's value to the consumer (multiples of the current price)?

Whats legitimate use?

If I owned “doctor.com” or “lawyer.com” and used that for my unrelated low effort personal website, would that be better for everyone than a domain squatter who’s willing to sell the domain to someone who’s actually going to do something useful with it? I don’t think so.

Re: Let ICANN know if you support .com price hikes

#68

Post by buboard »

jasonjayr wrote: post #65
buboard wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no tragedy of the commons here, its the opposite, people create value on previously worthless dns-land. There is no shortage of TLDs, instead an infinite supply, so its not a zero sum game. Of course demand and supply applies Housing and spectrum are inherently limited so it makes sense to have ‘homesteading’ rules, especially when they are not even rented out

There really isn't an infinite supply though. There are desirable properties of a domain, including memorability (length of domain, typability, common words). Sure, something like "eebe8X.com" is usable, but it's not very desirable.

the supply is infinite by design, but that doesn't mean that all supply is equal

Re: Let ICANN know if you support .com price hikes

#69

Post by fgonzag »

geofft wrote: post #58
rovr138 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not opposed to it if needed. This part is the one that convinced me it shouldn’t happen right now, > $7.85 of your registration or renewal payment goes to Verisign. The actual cost to Verisign to provide the expensive infrastructure and the management of the registry has been estimated at between $2.50 to $2.90 per domain name per year. Other registries have said they can offer the same services for cheaper. I’m…

"Has been estimated" by others? I'm not a fan of government-style lowest-bidder procurement for something as critical as .com. Among other things, I assume this involves operating the .com DNS servers, and it seems like the current operators are probably uniquely positioned to understand what makes that different from operating e.g. .party or .racing, what weird load patterns it sees, maybe even how much to pay the f…

Critical infrastructure operated by a single company. That can't ever go wrong, provider redundancy is overrated.

Re: Let ICANN know if you support .com price hikes

#70

Post by toyg »

ryanlol wrote: post #66
toyg wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Domains are real estate. Periodic land reform / redistribution is a staple of human history, when things become patently unbalanced for society as a whole.

Is domain distribution patently unbalanced for society as a whole? What does that even mean? Should everyone be able to get a short dictionary word .com domain?

> Is domain distribution patently unbalanced for society as a whole?

Not entirely yet, or it would have already entered the political debate. However, in many ways the proliferation (and success) of alternative TLDs indicates that there is an issue. You shouldn't have to use an Indian Ocean domain because .com is squatted to the wazoo.

We have lived through the land-grab era, sooner or later the redistribution era will come.

> Should everyone be able to get a short dictionary word .com domain?

Considering there are less than a million 4-ascii-letter combinations, obviously not. But there could be more stringent criteria for assignment and revocation, like limits per-company and per-individual, escalating costs in a way that hoarding becomes uneconomical, banning parking (which is absolutely doable, you just need an actual human judge), and so on.

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