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Some random thoughts:<br>
<br>
I would assume that a sizable fraction of .city and .geosomething
applications were indeed following a superior goods logic. Maybe
even some large corporate applications. In itself, this is not bad
at all. Vanity business-models are a welcome change from the old
business-models.<br>
<br>
I view the motivation behind most other applications as high
risk-reward low cost endeavors, despite the real costs highlighted
by Milton. Meaning they chase the old business models, and not new
ones. <br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Applications by the current domain
industry mainly trying to replicate the defensive registration
business model is a net cost on them: I don't foresee much reward.
Most of them new TLDs are not gonna have any kind of an acceptable
payback. No doubt spams n scams and speculation will contribute to
a certain volume to successful applicants, though the very idea of
expansion should cool down some of the sld-speculation volume the
applicants get. <br>
<br>
The way I view the expansion is that its many old-business-model
applications was a necessary evil to flesh out the few
applications intent on finding new business models. Like you say,
Google could very much turn this thing on its head. I viewed the
185k as a way to constrain old-business-model seeker's purported
spread strategy of diversifying TLD applications, looking for the
ones with the high payback compensating for others. (I think some
of the old applicants from ICANN's troubled history with
alternates were able to apply for free on all the ones they did
apply before, right? If that is so, that was an <b>un</b>necessary
evil, whose challenge should have been met squarely before the
application process.)<br>
<br>
And so for the numbers of application in developing countries, it
seems only normal that ― not knowing what innovative business
model might come out of this ― there was no point in applying in
the hope of benefiting from new-business-model first-movers
advantages. That no more than 2 or 3 applications out of Africa
did, seems reasonable and expected. I wouldn't have expected many
African applications to chase the old business-model, and also
comparatively fewer should have been chasing the vanity model.<br>
<br>
If the expansion is about finding *some* new business model (and,
concomitantly, applications) for domain names, I would still
contend that the good way to go was to enable such an expansion
since the alternative is, of course, a planned expansion. Such an
alternative would be even more messy and would not result in the
same level of "attack" on the old business models. Because I still
consider that an expansion changes the dynamics of the old models
considerably. Defensive registration cannot possibly be made out
in every new tld, for instance, which should contribute to
depleting the defensive value attached to semantic strings. In
other words, I believe that abundance destroy defensive value. At
the same time, it destroys some of the stronghold put over
languages and meanings by TM and IP. Meaning, that competition on
the old business-model will help to scour the old business model.<br>
<br>
Nicolas<br>
<br>
On 7/13/2012 12:24 PM, Evan Leibovitch wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAMguqh1fvZCLXSfCJ5r4vt7ZnGL-gdVq4oTwizF9T6B6UOTAwQ@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">On 13 July 2012 11:22, Milton L Mueller <span
dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:mueller@syr.edu" target="_blank">mueller@syr.edu</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div class="im">> -----Original Message-----<br>
> Of course if you and MM are right, and no one in their
right mind would<br>
> want one of these things anyway, then it might be a
waste of time.<br>
<br>
</div>
[Milton L Mueller] That is not my position. At all. I see many
reasons for a variety of players to have one, and believe that
I was advocating that ICANN open the root to new additions
since 1996 - before there was an ICANN.<br>
<br>
I have always maintained that IDN TLDs in particular refute
any claims that there is no need for new TLDs.<br>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I agree. My own position is that while the vast bulk of TLD
applications are needless extractions of value from the
Internet, a handful are genuinely useful. ESPECIALLY IDNs,
there should be at least one (and preferably two or three) in
every script.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>It will also be useful to have some TLDs that were *truly*
based on different business models that did not depend on
speculators or defensive registrations, or whose
differentiator was more than its string being a new category.
I look forward to what Amazon and Google plan to do, since
they have far different motives for applying than most of the
usual suspects. It will be very interesting to see what
happens to the business models of all those speculators if
Google maintains the path it has gone in other fields, and
starts handing out free second level domains to content
providers. Indeed, IMO the only silver lining of the entire
gTLD application process is the invitation to the likes of
Google to disrupt the domain industry (and possibly destroy
much of it).</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>It will certainly be interesting to see what influence
these new players, which dwarf the former "giant" Verisign,
exert in the GNSO going forward.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
What I am saying is that new TLDs are a species of what
economists call a "superior good"; i.e. goods which make up a
larger proportion of consumption as income rises. <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_good"
target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_good</a></blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>In the extreme sense also known in the vernacular as a
luxury item, a term which I would certainly agree applies to
most new gTLDs.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
To expect poorer and developing economies to exhibit as much
demand per capita for new TLDs as highly developed and richer
internet economies is just not realistic. That will, of
course, change gradually over time as these economies catch
up, perhaps faster than we think (given the way our own
economies seem to be stagnant or sinking). I just don't
believe we can or should force-feed it in order to make
outcomes conform to unrealistic but ideologically attractive
expectations.</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I would go a step further and say that most new gTLDs are
not just luxury items but deliberate symbols of vanity and
status -- adornments that indicate the buyer's ability to
afford something that would to most be totally unnecessary (or
obviously overpriced). See "conspicuous consumption". </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>At a technical level, there's not much you can do with
<.foo> that you couldn't do with <.<a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://foo.com">foo.com</a>>.
In conversations with applicants over the past few years, I
have been amazed by the number of community and geo TLDs whose
primary rationale seems to be "we deserve it" as opposed to
"we need it", furthering the concept of "TLD as collective
status symbol" and without heed of the needs of people who
actually use the Internet.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>- Evan</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
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