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Please don't overlook that ICANN is regulatory capture. The idea you need to pay more than 2c/year for an entry in a goddamnn database and you have to pay a des

by harry8 11y ago

Please don't overlook that ICANN is regulatory capture. The idea you need to pay more than 2c/year for an entry in a goddamnn database and you have to pay a designated intermediary to make that request is, well, lucrative for the intermediaries because there's this massive barrier to entry to setting up in competition with the intermediaries. Does it look the same as "a seat on the exchange" in the financial world - trade on an exchange, you and your counterparty both get skimmed by a "broker" as well as by the exchange. Anything to make something as simple as putting a tiny entry into a database more of a pain and hassle justifies the ridiculous fees. The worse they do it the better it works for them. Incentive, yeah, let's make sure this screws up and looks like phishing, then they'll really need us and we can claim to be the good guys with utterly ignorant law enforcement who don't understand what they're asking for being the bad guys. If this cost the intermediaries money rather than being something that will turn out to be lucrative for the industry as a whole, you'd have a very different result. Now watch the downvotes and screams from the intermediaries and their apologists. Hi, enjoy your money!

rtpg 11y ago
There's reasons for charging $10 per domain other than the cost of the DB line One thing I can think of off the top of my head is that it makes domain squatting a bit more expensive. $10 instead of 2c is 500 times less domains for the same amount of money. At the same time, $10/year is a reasonable entry price for "I'm seriously considering using this domain" Domain names are a scarce resource, it makes sense to charge a good amount of money for them
- harry8 11y ago
  On that basis, I and I alone should have the monopoly and should give as much to icann as I deem appropriate. It's as good as the current system for your argument. If you want to make the argument of the necessity of a tax who gets it? Those who were on it early enough to capture the regulator. Interestingly on a philosophical level both republicans and democrats claim to hate regulatory capture. Republicans would want to open ICANN and it's intermediaries up for competition, democrats would prefer to nationalise the lot, yes I know, that's just the ideology not the behaviour of elected official much of late.
eropple 11y ago
> Now watch the downvotes and screams from the intermediaries and their apologists. Hi, enjoy your money! I downvoted you for this grandstanding, not for the rest of your post (which I agree with, for the most part, I think it's a crock). The "conspiracy behind every hedge" rhetoric stinks, and I wish we wouldn't do it here.
- harry8 11y ago
  Oh come the hell on. Not a conspiracy or anything like it. Just pure market forces in the presence of a market failure. Regulatory capture is normal and happens all the time. We should just point it out. Watch the responses, see whether flagging what I think they will be in advance is a useful thing or not. Grandstanding from an anonymous account? Really?
harry8 11y ago
It's a cool "Conspiracy theory" that won some guy a nobel prize for economics. They love them some conspiracy theories. http://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/regulatory-capture.asp http://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/regulatory-capture.asp Can we be adults now. /me watches for the avalanche of downvotes that always happen when you point this kind of thing out around here.
- DanBC 11y ago
  You are getting downvotes for your baity tone. Other users pointed this out to you. > Resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. > Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downvote you.
  - harry8 11y ago
    So what is the correct pattern? When you know it's going to happen to predict it to show the idiocy? Or to say post later looking sore? I think predicting it on the back of a reasonable post when you know what is going to happen despite it's reasonable nature kind of highlights the problem that exists here. I think I have a pretty good sense of when a post is going to get slammed in downvotes rather than responded to sensibly, so testing it with a proper demonstration seems to be the right thing. YMMV. I have tried the other way too by the way. I didn't bait nor invite, I predicted. And did so correctly. But I don't believe in calling people names like "conspiracy theorist" I think that is intellectually lightweight. I wonder if you do too?

by harry8 11y ago

rtpg 11y ago

There's reasons for charging $10 per domain other than the cost of the DB line One thing I can think of off the top of my head is that it makes domain squatting a bit more expensive. $10 instead of 2c is 500 times less domains for the same amount of money. At the same time, $10/year is a reasonable entry price for "I'm seriously considering using this domain" Domain names are a scarce resource, it makes sense to charge a good amount of money for them

harry8 11y ago
On that basis, I and I alone should have the monopoly and should give as much to icann as I deem appropriate. It's as good as the current system for your argument. If you want to make the argument of the necessity of a tax who gets it? Those who were on it early enough to capture the regulator. Interestingly on a philosophical level both republicans and democrats claim to hate regulatory capture. Republicans would want to open ICANN and it's intermediaries up for competition, democrats would prefer to nationalise the lot, yes I know, that's just the ideology not the behaviour of elected official much of late.

eropple 11y ago

> Now watch the downvotes and screams from the intermediaries and their apologists. Hi, enjoy your money! I downvoted you for this grandstanding, not for the rest of your post (which I agree with, for the most part, I think it's a crock). The "conspiracy behind every hedge" rhetoric stinks, and I wish we wouldn't do it here.

harry8 11y ago
Oh come the hell on. Not a conspiracy or anything like it. Just pure market forces in the presence of a market failure. Regulatory capture is normal and happens all the time. We should just point it out. Watch the responses, see whether flagging what I think they will be in advance is a useful thing or not. Grandstanding from an anonymous account? Really?

harry8 11y ago

It's a cool "Conspiracy theory" that won some guy a nobel prize for economics. They love them some conspiracy theories. http://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/regulatory-capture.asp http://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/regulatory-capture.asp Can we be adults now. /me watches for the avalanche of downvotes that always happen when you point this kind of thing out around here.

DanBC 11y ago
You are getting downvotes for your baity tone. Other users pointed this out to you. > Resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. > Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downvote you.
- harry8 11y ago
  So what is the correct pattern? When you know it's going to happen to predict it to show the idiocy? Or to say post later looking sore? I think predicting it on the back of a reasonable post when you know what is going to happen despite it's reasonable nature kind of highlights the problem that exists here. I think I have a pretty good sense of when a post is going to get slammed in downvotes rather than responded to sensibly, so testing it with a proper demonstration seems to be the right thing. YMMV. I have tried the other way too by the way. I didn't bait nor invite, I predicted. And did so correctly. But I don't believe in calling people names like "conspiracy theorist" I think that is intellectually lightweight. I wonder if you do too?