[arin-ppml] The LRSA $100 fee...

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: arin-ppml-bounces at arin.net 
> [mailto:arin-ppml-bounces at arin.net] On Behalf Of Howard, W. Lee
> Sent: Friday, August 29, 2008 11:09 AM
> To: John Paul Morrison; John Curran
> Cc: ppml at arin.net
> Subject: Re: [arin-ppml] The LRSA $100 fee...
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: arin-ppml-bounces at arin.net
> > [mailto:arin-ppml-bounces at arin.net] On Behalf Of John Paul Morrison
> > Sent: Friday, August 29, 2008 1:03 PM
> > To: John Curran
> > Cc: ppml at arin.net
> > Subject: Re: [arin-ppml] The LRSA $100 fee...
> > 
> > Existing domain registrars can process orders, invoicing,
> > payment etc. for $10/year.
> > To reduce overhead, a single $100 fee could be charged up 
> > front and cover a 10 year period.
> > It doesn't take any more work for ARIN to enter "today's date 
> > + 10 years" instead of "today's date + 1 year"
> > in a database.
> 
> It is my humble opinion that domain name registrars suck.  
> The best of them provides lousy service and near-useless WHOIS.  
> Competition has ruined registry services by starting a race 
> to the bottom in price and service.
> 

Actually, it's worse than that

What happens now is that since registrars give so little help
other than the FAQ's and such on their websites, that now
when Joe Sixpack wants a domain name, he has to pay a 
consultant to actually register it for him

In the old days Joe Sixpack could call up Network Solutions on
their 800 number, pay his $40 and get a 1 year registration on
the domain.  In the process he would get someone on the phone who
would take the time to tell him exactly what he was getting and
how to use it.

Today, Joe Sixpack has to pay an Internet consultant $50 to
use a webinterface on someplace like towcows to register the
name, and then Joe Sixpack has to pay towcows $20 for the domain
name.  And the Internet Consultant is half the time going to
barely know a bit more than Joe Sixpack does.

So the net result is for the end-user, prices have actually
RISEN and service has DROPPED.

The ONLY beneficiaries of the domain name competition that I
can see are spammers who go though domain names like candy, and
the sex industry who now finds it immensely cheap to setup
innumerable variations of seeherpantiescomeoff.com.

Ted