IP: Anyone want to buy a bridge -- Registered domains cross

[Dave Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

Date: Sun, 21 Apr 1996 13:45:42 -0400
From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry () piermont com>




"Mike Walsh" writes:
> Domains registered with InterNIC crossed the 300,000 mark in early April.
> As of April 12th, commercial domains were at 276,400.  That's up 60% 
> from the 170,000 at the beginning of 1996.


And it represents another $10,000,000 in fees. I'm sure that the
InterNIC really costs that much to run for three months -- I also have
a mildly used bridge in lower Manhattan for sale.


Everyone remember when people said this level of money pouring in was
a fantasy when I mentioned it the first time?


The InterNIC franchise is worth about a billion dollars right now if
you believe it will have annual earnings of somewhere over $50,000,000
this year, which is perfectly reasonable. I'm glad the National
Science Foundation was so careful in handing out this monopoly. Not
that we'll ever see the contract broken, because at this point NSI
would probably resort to any trick, no matter how low, to keep
something worth a billion dollars.