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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

by simias 7y ago

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 make as much money out of it as they had hoped. And then what will they do? Agree to continue operating the TLD at a loss? ell oh ell. It's more likely that they'll either attempt to extort more money from people who can't actually afford to migrate or "strip" the TLD for parts somehow. On the other hand if ISOC bet on the wrong horse they've lost the Goose that Laid Golden Eggs, and they'll be in a worse position to help the open web. From the point of view of people believing in the ethos (ha!) of what .org is supposed to stand for, it seems like a lose/lose situation. I still don't really think it made sense to greenlight that deal for purely monetary reasons, I think the people on that board lost track of their objective, which I think is what the author acknowledges in part in his conclusion.

manwe150 7y ago
> 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. The field of economics, and pretty much all monetary transactions, are about demonstrating that sales (and thus wealth) are not a zero-sum game. Whether that’s true for any particular case, such as this one, can be debated forever still, just often not based simply on that assumption.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  > The field of economics, and pretty much all monetary transactions, are about demonstrating that sales (and thus wealth) are not a zero-sum game. Yes, a good chunk of them are really negative-sum games, once you include all secondary stakeholders in the calculations.
  - iudqnolq 7y ago
    Care to expand on your one sentence dismissal of modern economics? Maybe a second sentence describing the means by which this happens, or an example, or even - gasp - a source?
    - einpoklum 7y ago
      If you've lived through the last US economic crisis you might not be that riled up about one-sentence dismissals of modern economics.
      - iudqnolq 7y ago
        Why?
      - jessaustin 7y ago
        Did you "live through" it? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21725341 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21725341
        iudqnolq 7y ago
        This is completely unfair because the last crisis had major world-wide effects even if the US (probably) caused it.
        jessaustin 7y ago
        Yes, that's the point. We're here for reasoned discussion. Facile appeals to emotion are always unfair, and always OT on HN. No one was on Mars sitting out the last big economic event.
        iudqnolq 7y ago
        Well, I wasn't old enough to know what was going on, so essentially that.
    - 7y ago
commandersaki 7y ago
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 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.
mlyle 7y ago
I think the deal isn't good for the internet and ICANN shouldn't allow it to proceed. But... > 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 Lots of transactions like this aren't zero sum. ISOC gets everything they want to continue their mission forever and escapes a major source of uncertainty/risk. Ethos Capital gets an asset for less than its expected value and tries to leverage the risk to make it worth more.
MaxBarraclough 7y ago
> eventually they'll realize that they can't make as much money out of it as they had hoped. And then what will they do? Agree to continue operating the TLD at a loss? ell oh ell. It's more likely that they'll either attempt to extort more money from people who can't actually afford to migrate or "strip" the TLD for parts somehow. If they have the option of 'stripping' the TLD for cash, do you think they'd ever decline to do this?

by simias 7y ago

manwe150 7y ago

> 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. The field of economics, and pretty much all monetary transactions, are about demonstrating that sales (and thus wealth) are not a zero-sum game. Whether that’s true for any particular case, such as this one, can be debated forever still, just often not based simply on that assumption.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
> The field of economics, and pretty much all monetary transactions, are about demonstrating that sales (and thus wealth) are not a zero-sum game. Yes, a good chunk of them are really negative-sum games, once you include all secondary stakeholders in the calculations.
- iudqnolq 7y ago
  Care to expand on your one sentence dismissal of modern economics? Maybe a second sentence describing the means by which this happens, or an example, or even - gasp - a source?
  - einpoklum 7y ago
    If you've lived through the last US economic crisis you might not be that riled up about one-sentence dismissals of modern economics.
    - iudqnolq 7y ago
      Why?
    - jessaustin 7y ago
      Did you "live through" it? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21725341 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21725341
      - iudqnolq 7y ago
        This is completely unfair because the last crisis had major world-wide effects even if the US (probably) caused it.
        jessaustin 7y ago
        Yes, that's the point. We're here for reasoned discussion. Facile appeals to emotion are always unfair, and always OT on HN. No one was on Mars sitting out the last big economic event.
        iudqnolq 7y ago
        Well, I wasn't old enough to know what was going on, so essentially that.
  - 7y ago

commandersaki 7y ago

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 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.

mlyle 7y ago

I think the deal isn't good for the internet and ICANN shouldn't allow it to proceed. But... > 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 Lots of transactions like this aren't zero sum. ISOC gets everything they want to continue their mission forever and escapes a major source of uncertainty/risk. Ethos Capital gets an asset for less than its expected value and tries to leverage the risk to make it worth more.

MaxBarraclough 7y ago

> eventually they'll realize that they can't make as much money out of it as they had hoped. And then what will they do? Agree to continue operating the TLD at a loss? ell oh ell. It's more likely that they'll either attempt to extort more money from people who can't actually afford to migrate or "strip" the TLD for parts somehow. If they have the option of 'stripping' the TLD for cash, do you think they'd ever decline to do this?