Re: [registrars] drop pool registrars

[Eric Brunner-Williams in Portland Maine <brunner@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> The transaction model is not yet in affect. The existing budget was
> extended. The Board did approve the new budget at the meeting in KL in July,
> but the affective date was left open so that ICANN could continue to work
> with Registrars to address concerns.

That was my impression, however, that merely postpones a date with ... some
obvious curves.  The first (inprogress) tending asymtotically towards some
number less than zero (drop average sliding revenue minus ICANN fee and VGRS
franchise costs), and possibly rebounding, but not greatly above zero, and
one having a sharp inflection point (upwards) on each ICANN budget year.

For aggregators [1] and VGRS neither curve applies. These broadly, along
with ICANN, are unaffected by the asymtotic descent of the drop average
sliding revenue curve, and appear to obtain no loss of revenues due to
the diminuation of the drop average sliding revenue. I don't see any
reason for these actors to modify behavior that is reducing the drop
average sliding revenue.

Off-list I pointed out to another registrar recently that "... if ICANN,
for want of a better word, "ICANNIZED" the backorder market, taking all the
[generic] revenue, and in excange, zeroing out the franchise cost [and doing
something useful], [registrars] would gain by that. What we still appear to
have is the original budget, somewhat modified, but which is wicked obsolete
in its "profit" assumption.

Cheers,
Eric

[1] some of whom are incidently registrars.