Thanks Ayden - I was about to say the same. I don't think it's fair to
dismiss this as just astroturfing by domainers - this seems to have
legitimately touched a nerve among non-profit registrants who are
concerned about the potential price increases.

Also, in response to Milton's claim that the comment "is proposing is
that ICANN take on the power to set prices for registries." - it's
worth noting that the new proposed contract is a *change* to the
status quo. So it's not as if the price caps represent an expansion of
ICANN's powers. They are already in place. Now, if you want to present
this as an area that ICANN should retreat from - that's your
prerogative, but I think it's incumbent to propose an alternative
mechanism to keep prices reasonable for non-profit registrants and,
personally, I find the pure "market forces" argument unsatisfactory
given the enormous opportunity costs involved with migrating to a new
domain.

On Mon, Apr 29, 2019 at 10:55 AM Ayden Férdeline <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> I'm sure there are a few domainers amongst the commenters, but when I read through a handful of them last night I was struck by how may were submitted by legitimate not-for-profits, charities, boy scout troop leaders, churchs, schools, and many individual .org registrants who used their domain and said it was the only one they had. And I found many of their arguments persuasive: that PIR is a monopoly, that if this went out to tender prices would go down not up, and that they have built their identities around their .org domain so cannot easily move to another TLD.
>
> Best wishes, Ayden
>
>
> ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
> On Monday, April 29, 2019 3:50 PM, Mueller, Milton L <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Sorry, for those of you not familiar with the term “domainers” these are people who register a lot of names and sit on them and hope to re-sell them.
>
> For these actors, the registry price is the cost of holding inventory. So their opposition to any price increase from .org is basically just a way to increase their profit margins. It has very little to do with the ordinary domain name registrant who actually uses the name.
>
>
>
> Domaining is a perfectly legitimate business, but let’s not confuse their interest with our main constituency’s interests.
>
>
>
> From: NCSG-Discuss <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Mueller, Milton L
> Sent: Monday, April 29, 2019 9:46 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [Urgent] [Public Comment] Proposed Renewal of .org Registry Agreement
>
>
>
> Yeah, domainers are well-organized and vocal, Kathy.
>
> ;-)
>
>
>
> Hi All,
>
> You should see what’s going on out there: there are hundreds of comments opposing the proposed changes to the .ORG contract.
>
>
>
>