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

[Tom Vest]

On Aug 30, 2008, at 1:09 PM, Milton L Mueller wrote:

>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: arin-ppml-bounces at arin.net [mailto:arin-ppml-bounces at arin.net]
> On
>> Behalf Of Howard, W. Lee
>> 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.
>>
>
> Competition in the domain name registrar space has probably returned
> about US$ 5 billion in consumer surplus to domain name registrants  
> over
> the past 7 years. It's led to some problems but also a massive
> improvement in service levels and growth in the industry. If you  
> wish to
> hold up Network Solutions Inc's pre-competition service levels as an
> improvement over what exists now I suspect that you keep that quiet.
> People who had to deal with them will either harm themselves via an
> apoplectic reaction or lose control and assault you. ;-)
>
> Are we going to start pining for the good old AT&T monopoly next?

With *competing* switched services, a race to the bottom only affects  
the parties that opt for the the lower/lowest cost provider.
Given the nature of switched services, the existence of competition  
itself would mean that the system is not highly vulnerable to reckless  
economizing by the most aggressive price slashers.

Notice how Lee specifically mentioned whois -- that's one feature that  
obviously can be (has been?) eroded by race-to-the-bottom competition.

Broadly decentralized, unswitched service platforms like the Internet  
don't enjoy the same kind of immunity/invulnerability to such perverse  
commercial strategies as do switched platforms...

(note: we covered this once before on June 26, 2008 11:55:09 AM EDT /  
Re: [arin-ppml] Q1 - ARIN address transfer policy: why thetriggerdate?)

So, will the real good old monopoly advocate please stand up!

TV