Re: [wg-c] registry contracts

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Fri, Nov 12, 1999 at 09:24:13AM -0500, Jonathan Weinberg wrote:
[...]
> That's an especially powerful concern so long as there are only a
> relatively small number of TLDs.  A for-profit registry is more likely than
> a nonprofit registry, especially one set up along the Nominet model, to
> take advantage of that market power by jacking up prices -- setting prices
> at economically inefficient levels, and collecting monopoly rents.  (In
> general, entities with built-in market power have other problems — they
> have leeway to skimp on service, and they become fat and lazy.  But there's
> no strong reason to think that for-profits are more susceptible to those
> problems than are nonprofits.)

I find your last statement somewhat strange -- there is a *very* good
reason that for-profits are more susceptible -- it takes money to
become fat and lazy.  It is true that there have been some 
well-publicized cases of individuals in charge of non-profits making 
a very good living, but that is *not* the normal state of affairs 
with non-profits -- usually they scrape for every dollar.

Also, if the registry is controlled by the registrars, there is a
strong incentive to keep the costs of the registry down, because
those costs are reflected to the registrars.  (One of the advantages 
of the CORE model over the Nominet model is the degree of control of 
the registrars -- in the CORE model, the registrars control the 
registry fairly directly; in the nominet model the registry has 
significantly greater independence, at least as I understand it.)

That is, in the CORE model the registry *is* subject to competitive 
forces in very much the same way that a for-profit registry would be 
-- all incentives for improvement in registry services filter 
directly through the registrar's who control the registry.

-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Do good, and you'll be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain