Chris:
I understand the comparisons and the analogy you used about
abuse. I'm sure the store's policy would change if people
were buying thousands of socks, creating a shortage, which is
exactly what is happening with domain names right now.
And I agree completely with you.
The devil is in the details, as usual. Questions arise:
- how will the policy change? Will the store stop grace period practice
altogether, or return only a percentage of the money paid? (this is the
.org
solution)
- will each individual store make its own decision, or will a global
policy
authority enforce elimination of the practice? In the real world,
individual
shops may shout loud, because that will prevent them to put in practice
what
they would call a customer service.
Probably more questions may arise. Anyway, to be clear, I am not defending
the AGP, and I am definitively objecting the excess and/or misuse, I am
only
trying to figure out whether it is necessary and/or beneficial to kill the
AGP instead of killing the perverse effects. Incidentally, I tend to think
(and did not see so far any convincing statement against) that if we apply
a
cost per transaction of a certain amount instead of applying a full refund
the misuse will stop (or at least will be greatly reduced) without
disallowing the market to make use of the AGP, if the different actors
decide to do so, not requiring an intervention from the center.
But this is just my opinion. Of course, different Board members have
different opinions.
Cheers,
Roberto