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Auerbach Weighs in for gTLD Lotteries
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There are two errors in this post, one is factual and the other is conceptual.
First, the factual error is the assumption that domain names are simply moving from one level of the pyramid to another and are not actually be used. This may be true for a tiny fraction of domain names, but very large numbers of registered TLDs have websites. If the remainder, most are held in stable inventories, and are not in perpetual motion. Second, the conceptual error concerns the nature of a pyramid scheme. Pyramid schemes only work if more and more dupes are brough into the bottom layers of the pyramid, but this is clearly not the case with domain names. If anything, fewer and fewer dupes are buying worthless domains. If the DNS were a pyramid scheme, it would have collapsed long ago. The fact that it has not collapsed is evidence that something of real economic value is at stake. My apologies to all who have this extended exchange tedious.Lawrence Solum
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End of Pyramid Scheme Discussion
by lsolum
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To your first point, large numbers of sLDs are not in fact used for websites. There are at least two reasons for this. One is that a domain name has a myriad of other uses than just for a website. Domain names were in use long before Tim Berners-Lee et al came up with the HyperText Transfer Protocol. The second is for a number of somewhat related reasons, speculators, defensive registrations, the dotbomb implosion. For examples of domain (mis as well as un)use one could check out some of the work [harvard.edu] of Ben Edelman. Additionally, we are not talking about the same item in an inventory. ICANN controls the root zone, registries control the TLD zone, registrars control the sLD zone, speculators and others control the resale zone. To your second point, I submit, and have said so here, on the DNSO GA list, and elsewhere for more than a year now that the pyramid would be, and for some time now has been, collapsing. One need look no further than the tepid response to ICANN's last rollout of TLDs (at the sLD level), or the renewal numbers for existing domains, if one wishes proof of an implosion. Finally, you are responding to my, until then, only post regarding Pyramids on this thread, I am not (normailly) Anonymous, so if this is tedious (and I don't find it so), I can only cop to a minority of the tedium. -g
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