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Why ISOC sold .ORG to VCs

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Re: Why ISOC sold .ORG to VCs

#91

Post by emn13 »

e2le wrote: post #43
emn13 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how does google find those domains? Link juice still matters, and those links work via... domains.

Those links work with domains or addresses no matter if it's https://yourdomain.com/ or https://[2001::1]/ . Google finds those domains through a variety of means (social media, collecting other domains from the sites they index, manually submitted domains, etc). Google also indexes addresses.

But links aren't alive; so if somebody once linked to something you wrote/own/built/whatever on some domain, you can't magically transfer that link to your new site if the domain name system decides to jack up prices until you consider moving.

And you're similarly not likely to own an ip address forever, not to mention that if you have any doubts about the userfriendliness of domains, you don't need to wonder about ip-addresses. Ip addresses are worse on all fronts; leaving you back to square one: the DNS gatekeepers own your domain and merely let you use it. Just pray they don't change the terms of that deal.

Re: Why ISOC sold .ORG to VCs

#92

Post by iudqnolq »

beambot wrote: post #90
iudqnolq wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's possibly plausible, but it's a lot more complicated a claim than just those industries being bad. To take the example of tobacco, you'd need to quantify the enjoyment smokers get from it, the harm to their lives, the harm to other's lives, the benefit to everyone in the supply chain (from farm workers to farmers to advertisers to executives), the harm to everyone in the supply chain (especially the exploitatio…

sum(negatives) > sum(positives) is perfectly legitimate -- it's not extremely pointless , nor is it particularly difficult to assess. It's (quite literally) a "pros vs. cons" analysis. It can be complex to quantify, but we do so all the time through modeling. The function needn't be linear in the parameters, and many parameters can intangible (e.g. societal, moral, etc) that are subject to jurisdiction, norms, cultur…

You're right that assessing a model like that is perfectly legitimate, but all the models you mention are much more limited and well-understood than multiple sectors of the economy. The original post in this chain claimed "a good chunk" of the modern economy was net-negative. I don't believe we make similarly hard to quantify calculations every day.

It's also important to note that all the examples you give have a lot more data supporting them than any of these internet comments. If the original poster actually built a model of a "good chunk" of the economy and proved it was net-negative and zero-sum I wouldn't have been dismissive.

Re: Why ISOC sold .ORG to VCs

#93

Post by commandersaki »

simias wrote: post #11

Honestly if that analysis is correct then on one hand I concede that it does make the decision appear less like pure bribery than I initially thought but on the other it's even worse for .org users. Maybe I'm wrong to consider this a zero-sum game, but surely if ISOC made a good deal selling .org that means that Ethos Capital got the short end of the stick. That means that eventually they'll realize that they can't m…

If you were on the savedotorg call by NTEN it honestly felt like that anyone supportive of the sale were pretty much bought & paid for.

Link: https://vimeo.com/377655043

The only voice of reason was at the tail end of the video where someone voiced: it is all very good and well to talk about assurance and promises and future guarantees, the problem is we have a conflicting timeline and effectively what we've been presented with is we're being asked to accept the deal on the basis that our concerns will be dealt with, and I don't think it is reasonable and would like to ask that Ethos and ISOC and so on consider simply delaying it long enough to put in place the binding commitments they are clearly willing to undertake before we finalise the deal rather than the other way around.

I raised a similar question but rather asked why they couldn't delay the deal to allow for community and public scrutiny and why everything has to be rushed. I got a response from someone saying the deal is dead in the water if it isn't done by April 1st next year.

Re: Why ISOC sold .ORG to VCs

#94

Post by commandersaki »

emn13 wrote: post #34

This analysis is highly suspect. It's a great sales pitch sure - but it's false. So first of all: the overhead for running the registry is unreasonably high. You'd expect there to be considerable room for reducing costs, so the 75M$ per year is artificially low; revenue is around 100M. Secondly, that revenue is artificially (but reasonably!) low because the price is capped. But guess what? That price cap was just rem…

Pretty sure PIR outsources their DNS management to afilas or something, and they even negotiated a cut of the fees by 50% in a recent bid.

Re: Why ISOC sold .ORG to VCs

#95

Post by ksec »

Adding an additional pieces of Information to the mix.

Donuts, Inc, was bidding for .Web in 2016, and lost to Nu Dot. Nu Dot then sold the name to Verizon. Somehow this was unfair and they decide to sue them. ( What ? )

Had Donut got .Web, they would have floated the company and make a return of Investment. Since they lost, they figure out their next step / solution was .ORG. And the timeline in 2017 and 2018 seems to confirm that.

Re: Why ISOC sold .ORG to VCs

#96

Post by dane-pgp »

cupofsludge wrote: post #83
hjkhtroeiupwq wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For once, .ngo is more credible. From wikipedia: > Unlike the more prevalent .org domain, which is also managed by the Public Interest Registry, .ngo will require validation of the registrant's non-governmental status

It's more credible on paper, but the common internet user is more likely to know and trust .org domains then any of the new TLDs.

Yes, and it is slightly amusing to think that an ordinary internet user is going to make a decision about whether to trust .org more than .ngo domains by checking Wikipedia. That's wikipedia dot org...

Re: Why ISOC sold .ORG to VCs

#98

Post by jtl999 »

Animats wrote: post #86

The whole concept that the registry owner has an ownership interest in domains is just wrong. Registrars have gotten uppity. Here are the current terms from Network Solutions: "Web.com expressly reserves the right to deny, cancel, terminate, suspend, lock, or modify access to (or control of) any goods or services (including the right to cancel or transfer any domain name registration) for any reason (as determined by…

Gandi has had a "moral clause" in their ToS in the past. Don't know if it's ever been enforced or not.

Re: Why ISOC sold .ORG to VCs

#99

Post by duskwuff »

xur17 wrote: post #82
duskwuff wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm just cynical, but the fact that the first thing mentioned on their homepage is a cryptocurrency "airdrop" doesn't leave me with a confident feeling about the project's long-term viability.

That's a fair response. That said, it's worth noting: > The Project Sponsors received a minority participation (7.5%) of HNS in the interest of aligning all stakeholders, including industry. All of the 10.2MM USD collected from Project Sponsors (Funds and Individuals) will be given to Free and Open Source Software projects. The rest was all airdropped in an attempt to get wide distribution / get it in the hands of as…

Honestly, that doesn't allay my concerns at all. It all reeks of a pump-and-dump scheme. (I'm not saying that Handshake is trying to execute this scheme, but that they remind me of other projects which have done so.)

The pattern for these projects is pretty predictable: Promise amazing things from a technical project associated with a cryptocurrency token. Premine a bunch of those tokens and give them to insiders, then airdrop the token to create a market. The insiders sell off their tokens, and the project is forgotten.

Re: Why ISOC sold .ORG to VCs

#100

Post by donmcronald »

herodotus wrote: post #19
Rebelgecko wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering that the price of a .org will almost certainly be going up soon, I think that $75m/year will soon be $82million. I don't think it's sustainable to pull that amount of money every year from a 1.1 billion endowment.

From the article (not my view): "And yet, those of us in the technology business understand viscerally that nothing lasts forever. What seems like a steady cash cow today may be obsolete sooner than anybody suspects. Personally I think even DNS will be disrupted in the future by some kind of distributed ledger technology beyond even blockchain, like hyperledger or hashgraph or some post-singularity quantum foam."

What a bunch of hand wavy bullshit. TLDs are like property. No one will buy into a system where they lose their valuable property. Facebook, Google, etc. aren’t interested in a decentralized, Wild West internet. The only way they get onboard with an alternative is if they control it and that’s way worse than the current system.

Today they sell .org claiming it’s not forever. Tomorrow they’ll be doing an IPO claiming it’ll be around for eternity.

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