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Username: Melvin Q. Watchpocket
Date/Time: Fri, October 27, 2000 at 3:21 AM GMT
Browser: Netscape Communicator V4.08 using Macintosh PowerPC
Score: 5
Subject: Beware of capitalist-speak

Message: 		 

 
        > Curious. Other than this moderately prohibitive fee,

"MODERATELY prohibitive" ??  Now *that* is a curious description.

> what means would you propose to ensure that 1,000,000 applications
> do not come into ICANN?

None whatsoever.  Because there are not even a fraction of that many
registrars.  If ICANN were a good-faith organization it would have
been set up to handle and automate the processing of a million applications anyway.

> You see, the companies that bid for TLDs MUST see $50,000 as a low
> figure. If they do not, and we consider approving them, disaster
> will await us.  If they do not, and we consider approving them,
> disaster will await us.

I don't believe it for a minute.  There is no reason for such a fee,
it's unnecessary.  And I can't help but suspect that your use of the words "us"  and "we" -- and your arguments in general -- puts you perhaps among those few who will directly benefit from such a fee.  That's about the only reason I can see as to why you'd defend it.

> Don't you think that a company for whom $50,000 was beyond reach,
> is better off NOT becoming a registry

No. Your mindset is dangerous. 

> --for they cannot afford serious equipment and do not have the
> monetary safety net that would be required if technological
> difficulties befell them.

The one thing does not at all follow from the other.  This is
nothing but a lot of elitist, exclusionary dribble.  It's corporate-speak.  You're trying to impose something for the benefit of a few.

It's amazing how often such abuses are clothed in the rhetoric of necessity.  "Disaster will befall us if we don't charge everyone 50 thousand dollars!"  "You need US to move in here and REGULATE you and CHARGE you money.  TRUST US -- We know better than YOU what's IMPORTANT and GOOD for you!"

> And do you not think that a poorly financed registry is likely to
> cut corners and operate with sub-par equipment, simply because they
> can't afford anything else?

I hear you saying one thing, and one thing only: "Keep out the
SCUM riff-raff -- those who don't have the bucks don't get a piece of my pie!"  What you call a "poorly financed" registry may well be
that of a group of people who know how to do things efficiently.

> I mean, your philosophy is remarkably egalitarian--and altogether
unrealistic.

Well, you've failed to persuade as to why what I'm saying is unrealistic.  That description applies more to your own arguments.
What ICANN is about is ARTIFICIAL SCARCITY, the purpose of which is to fatten corporate coffers and supress any real democratic freedom.
     
 

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