Subject: Re: .DE Rip off: .BRD for Free!

From: "Alan J. Maitland" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 12:10:41 -0700

Hey Kimosabe,

At 10:49 AM 1/29/99 -0500, Bob Allisat wrote:
>
>Mr. Lisse writes:
>> .DE is run by DENIC, a co-operative formed by most ISPs
>> in Germany.
> 
> People have been stuck with having to pay
> an arm and a leg in Germany to a monopoly 
> of ISPs and their .DE rip-off. We need
> Domain Name Services Providers to compete
> with these so-called national registries.
> Intead of paying the DM10 per year it
> actually costs to maintain the database
> they are gouged by a registry that serves
> only the ISPs and screws my fellow regular
> German citizens. ".BRD" for free anyone?
>
> Bob Allisat
>
> Free Community Network _ [email-masked]
> http://fcn.net _ http://fcn.net/allisat
> http://robin.fcn.net
>
>

How can you make the statement that it costs a flat DM10 to run DNS?

How do you know?    

Who pays for the staff, the customer service, the mailings, the marketing,
the pipes, the upgrades, the heating, the air conditioning and all of the
other expenses that keep a business up and running?  

What kinds of actuarial information do you have which leads you to this
stunning costing conclusion?

You seem to perennially want to offer your own grand scheme for the
Internet's future, yet you seem to be missing some business basics.

I know that you run some kind of "free" service, but I have found that very
little, if anything, free is worthwhile.  

I must pay expenses caused by having customers and a business, therefore I
must have revenue from somebody.  In my experience, most long term viable
businesses do - their shareholders prefer this sort of behavior.

Good luck,

Alan Maitland
President
NBCI.Net

Pay attention - stay alive

---

From: "Alan J. Maitland" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 14:15:53 -0700

Mr. Mc Pherson,

At 03:14 PM 1/29/99 -0500, [email-masked] wrote:
--snip--
>------------------------------------
>Although I agree with what you have to say for the most part. There are
>always expenses that require some sort of compensation, but sometimes
>compensation and also expenses do not take the form of monetary units. I do
>not think that the Internet community's primary purpose is "Business". Don't
>get me wrong, the internet is how I make my money too, but the internet's
>place on this earth is to provide a "central yet diverse" location to
>research and archive all sorts of neat and interesting intellectual
>material. Therefore, although expenses are incurred from providing these
>services, I also believe that individuals and businesses providing these
>services do not necessarily need to focus on making as much money as
>possible. I use Linus Torvaldis and the Linux OS as an example. And just to
>keep things in perspective, using a service such as Linux is not "free", you
>will be paying in the form of taking the time to educate yourself in the way
>the system works, and taking the time to design the system to be streamlined
>for your applications.

As the profitability of a business allows, it can be quite generous in its
provisions for philanthropy.  If a portion of such is given back to the
community that built its success, all the better.

>
>Although you are right, nothing gotten free is worthwhile. I will add to
>this that, giving something for free is MOST worthwhile.

I don't disagree.

--snip--
>
>
>-Scot Mc Pherson
>-Applications Engineer
>-Wave Wireless Networking
>-Dev. of SPEEDCOM International
>
>

Thank you for your well reasoned observations.  I think that we likely share
many common foundations.

Best,

Alan Maitland
President
NBCI.Net

---

From: "Alan J. Maitland" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 14:15:53 -0700

Mr. Mc Pherson,

I don't disagree.

--snip--

Best,

Alan Maitland
President
NBCI.Net