You only commented on 2 of his points. I'll presume you must agree with the others.
So let's take a look at the 2 that you don't agree with.You said:
With Afilias,
the system works the same way. Registrars can charge whatever they want on top of
the $5.95 registry fee. On Day 1, you'll be able to choose a registrar based on their
price. There's no guarantee of that with IOD.
My response:
This is false, as
I've said almost 50 times now. We have committed to having our RRP up and functional
within 30 to 60 days. Afilias, on the other hand, has not. They will only have their
membership to register with. Since they're the owners, that's no competition at all.
They've given no timeframe for admitting registrars. We have.
Please, do stop quoting
this untruth.
You said:
ICANN *did* consider diversity in their report (did you
even read it?), and when it comes to diversity, you can't beat Afilias. They have
19 member companies of various in size, located in different regions around the world.
It doesn't get more diverse than that.
Response:
Absolutely. So we were criticized
for having a hard time hiring in California (which is untrue), yet Afilias has members
all over the world and hasn't even chosen a location for their company yet, and they
get praised? Hardly seems fair. As for diversity, the members of Afilias, as owners,
cannot be called "diverse" in the mode of competition, as they are owners. Competition,
in this case, must question who owns the registry, and their registrar policy.
Afilias's
owners comprise 98% of the existing market, and they have no timetable for admitting
non-member registrars.
This isn't diversity, it's market-lock.
You say:
IOD
would be the monopoly, since it's a single company, and as of today, its ownership
is spread amongst 4 individuals. We've already been through a monopoly (NSI) and
it didn't work. Been there, done that. Why do it over again by selecting IOD?
Response:
Afilias
is a single company. IOD is a single company. Regardless of who owns it. If you take
this logic, then Microsoft has hundreds of thousands of owners (they're called shareholders),
yet they're a monopoly.
The plain fact is that you're making an analogy that just
doesn't match. The plain fact is that Afilias's ownership represents 98% of the current
market, and they're going for more.
You seem like a very intelligent person. I
can only presume that you realize this, and are arguing out of sheer enjoyment for
the sport.
Christopher Ambler