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

[Paul G. Timmins]

(heavily snipped message from Ted)
> > 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.

Really? In the old days, Joe Sixpack knew what a DNS server was, and how
to set up his server himself? In the old days, Joe Sixpack didn't care
about domain names, and in the current time, Joe Sixpack probably still
doesn't care. But if he did, he would probably have been one of those
people who paid NetSol their **$75** (or like the first one I got, $100)
for the 1 year registration ($40 was well after the introduction of
competitive registrars, if I remember right), and then not realized what
they were talking about when they asked for "nameservers". They didn't
park domains back then so you really needed those in advance.
 
> 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.

Or he can go to Godaddy and not uncheck all those boxes I typically used
to that said things like "free webhosting" etc, and pay less than $50
total.
(To say nothing of their loathsome web interface)

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

Many hosting providers will do it for a minimal cost on top of hosting.
What situations are you finding where an internet consultant actually
does this?

> 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.

While the benefit to these companies is immense, I highly disagree with
your assertion that they were the ONLY beneficiaries. I'm neither, and
own a lot more domain names now, than I could afford to own before. Same
with most of my friends.
-Paul

(slightly on topic: while I disagree with your rant regarding DNS
competition, I don't support competition in the in-addr zone.)