[ga] more tlds = more competition in my opinion, was: Re: Election...
kidsearch wrote: more tlds = more competition in my opinion.
There are several things to remember. First is businesses expend enormous amounts of their energy and money building brand name recognition. And in the non-commercial context, it is an equally intensive effort to build an internet name. So, once we plant our feet into a given TLD, for many of us, competition, at least among TLDs, ceases. Now, let's look at the competition issue in two ways, before the initial registration, i.e. the planting of our feet and the beginning of the road to build a brand, and then after that planting. When a person is shopping for among TLDs, there are many aspects that could distinguish one from another - for example, why should IBM have to buy ibm.com for merely 10 years? Do any of us think they will go away in a decade? No, they, as should the rest of us, have the opportunity to buy a name for as long as we think our business will last. (ICANN has foreclosed that kind of product offering, although I have it in my TLD, .ewe.) On the other hand, some folks only want short term things - like to announce a series of plays or an election - why should they have to buy something for an entire year (although one could quite reasonably ask, given the relatively low prices, why not?) Equally, TLDs could distinguish themselves by some offering special "TLD integrity" services - that they will engage in highly conservative practices to give a high degree of assurance that the TLD will remain operable for a long period of time no matter what happens (e.g. a major depression a la 1929.) Of course for this to be effective, the customer needs to be able to know the terms in advance and to lock them in, almost certainly for a price, for the duration. Today, with "consensus policies" it's hard for anyone, customer, registrar, or registry, to know what will be in the contracts tomorrow. I believe that one of the reasons that Verisign has been so uncomfortable with ICANN is that it must be hard to steer that company when it is unclear what it will be able to do, or will be prevented from doing, from year to year. So much for TLD competition before the customer makes the choice. After the customer, like a mussel, binds itself and its fate to a given TLD (or, in the case of a mussel, a rock or pier) inter-TLD competition becomes something that is largely irrelevant to the customer - in many, perhaps most, cases it is economically infeasible to change to a new TLD. Here it becomes a matter of expectations - that the contract terms be honored. There is a special case, those people who were locked into TLDs before there was a time (assuming that time has even yet occurred) when there is a fair choice among TLDs for those who have not yet chosen. I know, that my names, names dating from before 1994, that I had one choice - .com. I share this boat with lot of others - perhaps millions of others - and we do deserve protection against a completely unregulated .com that can change terms on us. --karl--
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