5 ms·

What happens when Ethos starts running their own mining software (or bribes existing miners) in order to jack up prices for .org?

by jude- 7y ago

rasengan 7y ago
In Handshake, rather than renting your domain from .org or .com, you own your tld. This means that nobody will be able to charge you for using your own name. No more rent seeking or getting taxed by a pseudo government of the internet.
- jude- 7y ago
  Ah, so the owner of .org in Handshake is completely unbound by any rules or regulations, and can charge whatever they want for any domains beneath it? Isn't that the entire problem of the .org sale -- the wanna-be new owners want to buy it and then rent-seek on it?
  - rasengan 7y ago
    Since TLD ownership will no longer be difficult (ICANN forces a 185k non refundable application fee just to see if you are eligible with no guarantees), people will have alternatives to .org, should .org continue to do what the people don’t want. The current ICANN system is essentially a monopoly that can raise prices to double revenue without paying mind to what the people of the internet have commented.
    - jude- 7y ago
      The problem here isn't the lack of alternatives to .org, it's the rent-seeking on .org (brought about by a corruption). It sounds like Handshake does not address this problem.
      - rasengan 7y ago
        The problem isn’t just .org but instead you’ll have to look one step up - ICANN and the US government [1]. [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/02/registrars-raise-alarm-over-proposal-for-big-com-fee-hikes/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/02/registrars-raise...
        jude- 7y ago
        I can tell that you really want me to believe that ICANN and the US government are the problem, and that Handshake is the solution. But you still have not addressed how Handshake solves the three main problems I have with the .org sale: * The .org owners should not be allowed to rent-seek, but instead continue to provide the same level of service and fees that we have come to expect. * The control and governance of TLDs should be handled by a non-corrupt governing body with the powers to ensure that only well-behaved operators may control TLD domains (where "well-behaved" can mean "will not rent-seek"). * To enforce this in the face of corrupt actors, the governing body for TLDs needs to be able to take back control of a TLD from a corrupted operator. You have not convinced me that Handshake will address any of these things. Therefore, Handshake is not germane to the discussion of what to do about .org.
        rasengan 7y ago
        > The .org owners should not be allowed to rent-seek, but instead continue to provide the same level of service and fees that we have come to expect. When the centralized monopoly is all for raising prices, it becomes clear that market forces ceased to exist. In free markets, pricing is controlled by the markets themselves, not by any single actor. Handshake absolutely makes TLDs a free market. > The control and governance of TLDs should be handled by a non-corrupt governing body with the powers to ensure that only well-behaved operators may control TLD domains (where "well-behaved" can mean "will not rent-seek"). I agree with this. Again, free markets control this. Consider the difference between the market for gum (market controlled) versus the market for patented drugs (single actor controlled). > To enforce this in the face of corrupt actors, the governing body for TLDs needs to be able to take back control of a TLD from a corrupted operator. If the community collectively decides to fork, it can fork. The people hold the power. Thanks for pointing out these questions and allowing me to directly address how Handshake solves these problems, and please keep them coming as it helps us to better understand what information isn’t well explained, and explain it!
    - danShumway 7y ago
      I can already migrate from .org to .com or other alternatives today. It's just that all of my links will break, my search engine placement will plummet, and users won't be able to find my site. If I'm using my domain as an identity indicator for email, it also opens the door for other people to impersonate me. The problem with the current system isn't that there aren't enough TLDs. There are tons of TLDs. The problem is that once you register a domain, you need to have permanent ownership of that domain. It doesn't matter if there are 5 thousand (or even 5 million) TLDs. Once I link a .com domain to my email, the .com owner has a monopoly over me. Handshake doesn't solve that problem. TLD owners will still be able to rent-seek, and they'll still hold monopolies over anyone who buys from them.
      - rasengan 7y ago
        > Handshake doesn't solve that problem. TLD owners will still be able to rent-seek, and they'll still hold monopolies over anyone who buys from them. This statement is cryptographically false. Handshake does give ownership of names in the form of TLDs to people and therefore, the owner of said TLD will not be subject to rent from name ownership. That being said, you are right that someone could still take a TLD and rent seek. Handshake benefits from not being monopolized in this process - you can always get your own TLD if you want to avoid this.
        danShumway 7y ago
        Only for TLD owners. The moment I'm renting a subdomain under another person's TLD, the problem stops being solved. > people will have alternatives to .org, should .org continue to do what the people don’t want. Handshake does not address or solve the problem of domain migration in any way. If you rent a subdomain from a Handshake TLD owner, and they turn out to be evil, you are in the exact same position as you would be under a centralized system. If you want to get rid of that problem, the TLD registration needs to be robust enough that everyone -- even high-school kids, even poor people, even weirdos who own dozens of websites -- can buy their own TLDs for all of them. The "you'll just rent subdomains" argument for Handshake needs to go away.
- geofft 7y ago
  What's the advantage of having human-memorable TLDs that are taken by whoever got in on the cryptocurrency early (I see from your list that names like "uwmadison" and "twentyfirstcenturyfox" are taken already, I don't suppose those are from the actual owners of those trademarks) and therefore your TLD generally isn't related to the name humans know you by, over using public-key-derived addresses like .onion?
  - rasengan 7y ago
    The majority of internet traffic goes to the top sites in the world [1]. To address these concerns, Handshake actually allows the top 100k ranked Alexa sites to claim their tld on Handshake with a DNSSEC ownership proof [2]. Finally, everyone’s domains from the existing legacy system will also continue to resolve. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/265770/most-popular-us-websites-by-market-share-of-visits/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/265770/most-popular-us-w... [2] https://hsd-dev.org/guides/claims.html https://hsd-dev.org/guides/claims.html
    - catalogia 7y ago
      Alexa rank doesn't seem like a good way to do this. A great many organizations, some of which have considerable clout, aren't going to be in the top 100k Alexa ranked websites because they aren't popular internet companies. For instance un.org and un.int don't seem to be in the top 100k. Perhaps a special exception would be made for the United Nations, but that's just one example out myriads. Using Alexa rank seems like a solution somebody with tunnel vision for the internet/tech industry would come up with. Volume of traffic isn't a good proxy for importance.
    - geofft 7y ago
      Why don't we simply petition the Internet Society to hold prices fixed for all existing .org domains in the Alexa top 100K? That should be a small part of the potential profits of running .org, and anyone else can just register a domain name on .party or whatever. That way we avoid the cost of a transition to a new system.
      - 7y ago
- danShumway 7y ago
  > In Handshake, rather than renting your domain from .org or .com, you own your tld. Given the conversation we had on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22312014 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22312014, I think this claim is leaving out a lot of information. Handshake is not optimized for ordinary people to buy TLDs the same way they buy .com domains. - There's no market information I can find about what a TLD will cost on average. - Purchasing a TLD will take at least 5 days at a minimum, with no guarantee that you're going to get the TLD at the end. - Auctions are blind, so you have almost no guarantees at all -- you'll just have to guess what the market value is. - The intention is still for TLD owners to be able to sell access to subdomains, which will enable the exact same rent seeking and exploitation. The only difference is that there'll be no regulation on the rent seekers. - Given that subdomains allow us to repeat names (myname.com vs myname.org vs myname.io), having one TLD system is going to be a decrease in the number of available domains, not an increase. The increase comes from the fact that we'll have a ton of TLDs and people will rent subdomains on them (see above). That's not to say Handshake might not still be a good idea in the sense that it increases competition overall, but I think it's borderline deceptive to say that everyone is just going to own a TLD. Registering a TLD in Handshake may end up being significantly more complicated and significantly more costly than buying a .org domain today -- especially once the good names get used up and new users are effectively forced to rent from existing owners or compete in blind auctions over much more limited resources. I'm a little bit irritated at this comment, because I've followed Handshake for a while and it's been really hard to get concise, clear information about how it works, even from the main project website. People don't understand the product being offered, and Handshake advocates keep posting very vague statements about how problems are just 'solved'. And whenever I dig into those claims and try to find out how they're solved, I find out that the implementation details aren't as clear cut. I want a project like Handshake to succeed, but y'all need to be a lot more up-front about the tradeoffs.
  - rasengan 7y ago
    > Registering a TLD in Handshake may end up being significantly more complicated and significantly more costly than buying a .org domain today It’s significantly easier than the process is today. It’s very hard to get a TLD from ICANN as the process consists of a non refundable application fee of 185k with no guarantees you’ll be approved. > There's no market information I can find about what a TLD will cost on average. Rather than artificial set costs, the market will dictate this. > The intention is still for TLD owners to be able to sell access to subdomains, which will enable the exact same rent seeking and exploitation. People can either register their own TLDs or choose one owned by someone who doesn’t want to gouge people. > Auctions are blind, so you have almost no guarantees at all -- you'll just have to guess what the market value is. Yes, and every bidder will have to be serious about wanting to win a domain instead of squatting every last domain. I appreciate your comments, and understand your concerns. I would be irritated too if I couldn’t find information about how this worked. Unfortunately, all the details (like Bitcoin was at the beginning) are buried in technical papers and developer docs. Luckily, Handshake is a community owned, community run project, and comments like yours help to propel the project forward and bring the explanation that people deserve. Thank you for your help and questions, and please keep them coming!
- jude- 7y ago
  Why should I believe that miners won't just rent-seek by gouging me with transaction fees when I try to renew my name? Unlike ICANN, I can't exactly sue miners for bad behavior.

What happens when Ethos starts running their own mining software (or bribes existing miners) in order to jack up prices for .org?

by jude- 7y ago

What happens when Ethos starts running their own mining software (or bribes existing miners) in order to jack up prices for .org?

rasengan 7y ago

In Handshake, rather than renting your domain from .org or .com, you own your tld. This means that nobody will be able to charge you for using your own name. No more rent seeking or getting taxed by a pseudo government of the internet.

jude- 7y ago
Ah, so the owner of .org in Handshake is completely unbound by any rules or regulations, and can charge whatever they want for any domains beneath it? Isn't that the entire problem of the .org sale -- the wanna-be new owners want to buy it and then rent-seek on it?
- rasengan 7y ago
  Since TLD ownership will no longer be difficult (ICANN forces a 185k non refundable application fee just to see if you are eligible with no guarantees), people will have alternatives to .org, should .org continue to do what the people don’t want. The current ICANN system is essentially a monopoly that can raise prices to double revenue without paying mind to what the people of the internet have commented.
  - jude- 7y ago
    The problem here isn't the lack of alternatives to .org, it's the rent-seeking on .org (brought about by a corruption). It sounds like Handshake does not address this problem.
    - rasengan 7y ago
      The problem isn’t just .org but instead you’ll have to look one step up - ICANN and the US government [1]. [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/02/registrars-raise-alarm-over-proposal-for-big-com-fee-hikes/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/02/registrars-raise...
      - jude- 7y ago
        I can tell that you really want me to believe that ICANN and the US government are the problem, and that Handshake is the solution. But you still have not addressed how Handshake solves the three main problems I have with the .org sale: * The .org owners should not be allowed to rent-seek, but instead continue to provide the same level of service and fees that we have come to expect. * The control and governance of TLDs should be handled by a non-corrupt governing body with the powers to ensure that only well-behaved operators may control TLD domains (where "well-behaved" can mean "will not rent-seek"). * To enforce this in the face of corrupt actors, the governing body for TLDs needs to be able to take back control of a TLD from a corrupted operator. You have not convinced me that Handshake will address any of these things. Therefore, Handshake is not germane to the discussion of what to do about .org.
        rasengan 7y ago
        > The .org owners should not be allowed to rent-seek, but instead continue to provide the same level of service and fees that we have come to expect. When the centralized monopoly is all for raising prices, it becomes clear that market forces ceased to exist. In free markets, pricing is controlled by the markets themselves, not by any single actor. Handshake absolutely makes TLDs a free market. > The control and governance of TLDs should be handled by a non-corrupt governing body with the powers to ensure that only well-behaved operators may control TLD domains (where "well-behaved" can mean "will not rent-seek"). I agree with this. Again, free markets control this. Consider the difference between the market for gum (market controlled) versus the market for patented drugs (single actor controlled). > To enforce this in the face of corrupt actors, the governing body for TLDs needs to be able to take back control of a TLD from a corrupted operator. If the community collectively decides to fork, it can fork. The people hold the power. Thanks for pointing out these questions and allowing me to directly address how Handshake solves these problems, and please keep them coming as it helps us to better understand what information isn’t well explained, and explain it!
  - danShumway 7y ago
    I can already migrate from .org to .com or other alternatives today. It's just that all of my links will break, my search engine placement will plummet, and users won't be able to find my site. If I'm using my domain as an identity indicator for email, it also opens the door for other people to impersonate me. The problem with the current system isn't that there aren't enough TLDs. There are tons of TLDs. The problem is that once you register a domain, you need to have permanent ownership of that domain. It doesn't matter if there are 5 thousand (or even 5 million) TLDs. Once I link a .com domain to my email, the .com owner has a monopoly over me. Handshake doesn't solve that problem. TLD owners will still be able to rent-seek, and they'll still hold monopolies over anyone who buys from them.
    - rasengan 7y ago
      > Handshake doesn't solve that problem. TLD owners will still be able to rent-seek, and they'll still hold monopolies over anyone who buys from them. This statement is cryptographically false. Handshake does give ownership of names in the form of TLDs to people and therefore, the owner of said TLD will not be subject to rent from name ownership. That being said, you are right that someone could still take a TLD and rent seek. Handshake benefits from not being monopolized in this process - you can always get your own TLD if you want to avoid this.
      - danShumway 7y ago
        Only for TLD owners. The moment I'm renting a subdomain under another person's TLD, the problem stops being solved. > people will have alternatives to .org, should .org continue to do what the people don’t want. Handshake does not address or solve the problem of domain migration in any way. If you rent a subdomain from a Handshake TLD owner, and they turn out to be evil, you are in the exact same position as you would be under a centralized system. If you want to get rid of that problem, the TLD registration needs to be robust enough that everyone -- even high-school kids, even poor people, even weirdos who own dozens of websites -- can buy their own TLDs for all of them. The "you'll just rent subdomains" argument for Handshake needs to go away.
geofft 7y ago
What's the advantage of having human-memorable TLDs that are taken by whoever got in on the cryptocurrency early (I see from your list that names like "uwmadison" and "twentyfirstcenturyfox" are taken already, I don't suppose those are from the actual owners of those trademarks) and therefore your TLD generally isn't related to the name humans know you by, over using public-key-derived addresses like .onion?
- rasengan 7y ago
  The majority of internet traffic goes to the top sites in the world [1]. To address these concerns, Handshake actually allows the top 100k ranked Alexa sites to claim their tld on Handshake with a DNSSEC ownership proof [2]. Finally, everyone’s domains from the existing legacy system will also continue to resolve. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/265770/most-popular-us-websites-by-market-share-of-visits/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/265770/most-popular-us-w... [2] https://hsd-dev.org/guides/claims.html https://hsd-dev.org/guides/claims.html
  - catalogia 7y ago
    Alexa rank doesn't seem like a good way to do this. A great many organizations, some of which have considerable clout, aren't going to be in the top 100k Alexa ranked websites because they aren't popular internet companies. For instance un.org and un.int don't seem to be in the top 100k. Perhaps a special exception would be made for the United Nations, but that's just one example out myriads. Using Alexa rank seems like a solution somebody with tunnel vision for the internet/tech industry would come up with. Volume of traffic isn't a good proxy for importance.
  - geofft 7y ago
    Why don't we simply petition the Internet Society to hold prices fixed for all existing .org domains in the Alexa top 100K? That should be a small part of the potential profits of running .org, and anyone else can just register a domain name on .party or whatever. That way we avoid the cost of a transition to a new system.
    - 7y ago
danShumway 7y ago
> In Handshake, rather than renting your domain from .org or .com, you own your tld. Given the conversation we had on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22312014 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22312014, I think this claim is leaving out a lot of information. Handshake is not optimized for ordinary people to buy TLDs the same way they buy .com domains. - There's no market information I can find about what a TLD will cost on average. - Purchasing a TLD will take at least 5 days at a minimum, with no guarantee that you're going to get the TLD at the end. - Auctions are blind, so you have almost no guarantees at all -- you'll just have to guess what the market value is. - The intention is still for TLD owners to be able to sell access to subdomains, which will enable the exact same rent seeking and exploitation. The only difference is that there'll be no regulation on the rent seekers. - Given that subdomains allow us to repeat names (myname.com vs myname.org vs myname.io), having one TLD system is going to be a decrease in the number of available domains, not an increase. The increase comes from the fact that we'll have a ton of TLDs and people will rent subdomains on them (see above). That's not to say Handshake might not still be a good idea in the sense that it increases competition overall, but I think it's borderline deceptive to say that everyone is just going to own a TLD. Registering a TLD in Handshake may end up being significantly more complicated and significantly more costly than buying a .org domain today -- especially once the good names get used up and new users are effectively forced to rent from existing owners or compete in blind auctions over much more limited resources. I'm a little bit irritated at this comment, because I've followed Handshake for a while and it's been really hard to get concise, clear information about how it works, even from the main project website. People don't understand the product being offered, and Handshake advocates keep posting very vague statements about how problems are just 'solved'. And whenever I dig into those claims and try to find out how they're solved, I find out that the implementation details aren't as clear cut. I want a project like Handshake to succeed, but y'all need to be a lot more up-front about the tradeoffs.
- rasengan 7y ago
  > Registering a TLD in Handshake may end up being significantly more complicated and significantly more costly than buying a .org domain today It’s significantly easier than the process is today. It’s very hard to get a TLD from ICANN as the process consists of a non refundable application fee of 185k with no guarantees you’ll be approved. > There's no market information I can find about what a TLD will cost on average. Rather than artificial set costs, the market will dictate this. > The intention is still for TLD owners to be able to sell access to subdomains, which will enable the exact same rent seeking and exploitation. People can either register their own TLDs or choose one owned by someone who doesn’t want to gouge people. > Auctions are blind, so you have almost no guarantees at all -- you'll just have to guess what the market value is. Yes, and every bidder will have to be serious about wanting to win a domain instead of squatting every last domain. I appreciate your comments, and understand your concerns. I would be irritated too if I couldn’t find information about how this worked. Unfortunately, all the details (like Bitcoin was at the beginning) are buried in technical papers and developer docs. Luckily, Handshake is a community owned, community run project, and comments like yours help to propel the project forward and bring the explanation that people deserve. Thank you for your help and questions, and please keep them coming!
jude- 7y ago
Why should I believe that miners won't just rent-seek by gouging me with transaction fees when I try to renew my name? Unlike ICANN, I can't exactly sue miners for bad behavior.