
ICANN't approve the sale of .org to private equity - patrickdavey
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/01/31/icann_dot_org_sale/
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dlgeek
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22205001](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22205001)

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mokus
This whole saga unfolding makes me think of a smaller scale drama thing that
illustrates some of what feels so surreal about it to me.

Recently, the subreddit r/pokemonswordandshield had a meltdown where,
allegedly, the “owner” of the sub and related discord server was seeking to
sell them in secret. I don’t know all the ins and outs of how or why that
would work, but the idea failed in any case because the mods rebelled and took
the community with them.

I can’t help but wonder though - if the sale actually did go through, isn’t it
now worthless? And isn’t the .org situation very similar in that the only
value it ever had was the community believing in the integrity of the product?
Like in the small case, if the sale itself alienates the community enough it
makes the thing sold toxic. Browser companies could, for example, choose to
replace ICANN’s role as authority for .org domains and make that $1.1B
purchase worthless. In light of that risk, is $1.1B a sane price now after the
uproar?

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ccmcarey
This is a poor and confusing title imo.

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apengwin
What is confusing about it? It's clever and punny

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RuleOfBirds
Immediately obvious it's probably a pun but as a native English speaker, I
can't tell if it's: \- a blog author saying they personally can't support the
sale, calling out icann who presumably sold it \- icann just approved it ('t
typo) \- icann can't approve it (legally or something) \- icann won't approve
it

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smitty1e
Ambiguity

Is the death of your software

And the soul of humor

