> Lastly, Chuck, I am sorry to took what you heard as us not > wanting your business. It is much more about where limited > focus and resources are spent.
Thanks for responding, Elliot. There is no need to apologize for my perception. There have been times I have been frustrated by the difference between my vision and that of Tucows, but I have no hard feelings about our relationship. Being an outsider, I obviously cannot know all the reasons for each decision. I can't help but wonder sometimes. Take for example the recent decision to not offer second level .name registrations. (I started to comment at the time it was being discussed here, but believe it or not, I do sometimes manage to hold my tongue!) I, for one, have no desire to register a .name domain, or to offer the service to my customers. I'm sure there is little money to be made on that particular product. But that's not my business. If I ran things at Tucows, I would definitely be on board with it. To not offer it means any customer (or customer of a customer) that needs a .name has to do business with a competitor to get it. I don't like that. Being a full-service registrar means offering all registration services, even those that are unpopular, doomed from the start, or just don't bring in a lot of money. Tucows has chosen not to be a full-service registrar. That choice may or may not have been a good business decision, I really don't know. But it isn't the way I'd have done it. I don't know if Tucows' registry connections are in use during the drops these days, but if not I would have to wonder why not. Use it, partner with it, or lease it out (I'm interested). The auction model that Snapnames has now adopted may be lucrative for the service and for the registrars, but it creates a lot of resentment among potential buyers. Freshly caught names seem to go at auction for much higher prices than many, including myself, can fathom. It makes it difficult to go after decent names as more and more resources shift to the auction model. Like you, I don't believe this is the long-term solution to the problem. There is excess value inherent in many expiring domains, but who should get the money? The registry? That wasn't a very popular idea. The registrars? New registrars are arriving in droves to take ever-smaller pieces of the pie. Maybe ICANN can throw a few nice parties. Secondary market domain name prices are on the rise. Maybe we need some friendly venture capitalists to help inflate "Bubble II". It will be interesting to see what happens with Google's "dutch auction" IPO. I used to like auctions.
