> Jim Dixon writes:
> > What you deleted was my "real life argument": a change in policy
> > regarding registrations in .UK caused a large shift out of .COM and
> > into .UK -- despite a higher price.
>
> Frankly, the shift is one anyone could have predicted (i.e. that you
> got more registrations in .UK when the process got less boneheaded),
Yes, competition works. It's quite predictable.
> and is utterly irrelevant to the fact that a company like, say,
> Netscape, has millions of dollars invested in their domain name and is
> unlikely to be willing to change it from netscape.com to
> netscape.foo. The issue of domain name "entrapment" and the fact that
> a monopoly manager of a TLD is in a very nasty position is orthogonal.
Yes, there are different types of competition.
> The American experience with 800 numbers, before and after 800 number
> portability, is, I believe, fully instructive.
<yawn> It is in fact fully orthogonal.
> Now that we've disposed of the issue, could we please QUIT TALKING
> ABOUT IT AND GET ON TO DEALING WITH IRA MAGAZINER?
The best way to deal with Ira Magaziner is to have a good reply to
the Green Paper. Shouting down anything that doesn't fit with your
misconceptions is not a good reply to the Green Paper or anything
much else.
Try to understand this: you cannot sell a no-competition policy.
The UK government has made it very clear that they won't buy it.
Neither will the European Union (hint: the UK currently has the
EU Presidency). Pretending that there is only one way that competition
can work is an error. Blind persistence in error costs you support.
> Or, Jim, is your goal here to distract us sufficiently that we get
> nothing done?
Perry, is it your goal to start flame wars and distract everyone
from the real issues?
-- Jim Dixon VBCnet GB Ltd http://www.vbc.net tel +44 117 929 1316 fax +44 117 927 2015