Will standardization stymie innovation? Maybe not… if it is done right!
I was recently in Bangkok for ICANN’s GDD summit. During the event, we (KKWT) announced .blog will be moving the backend from Nominet to CentralNic. Though almost all registrars were ok with this pending change, several registrars voiced concerns regarding the work involved and cited a lack of standardization in the industry for this.
This led me to think, ‘can standardization work in a global industry, with a high number of stakeholders, over a thousand products (top-level domains), guided by complex technical pieces like DNS, and legal frameworks like GDPR?’
Typically, standardization delivers services with a high degree of predictability resulting in sound products through consolidated business practices.
Standardization:
- Familiarity
- Stability
- Predictability
- Operational efficiency
- Cost Effective
- Less end-user confusion
This makes sense for domains, right? Hold on.
Flexibility, mostly associated with non-standards, allows for unique and customizable services for clients or end users. Flexibility is most beneficial for rapidly growing industries that may frequently need to adjust operational processes to accommodate changing market requirements, or drive innovation.
Non-standardization:
- Flexibility
- More robust offerings
- A higher level of creativity
- Increased innovation
Many of the 1000+ TLDs (new TLDs) today only came into existence since 2014. The market and appetite for the new TLDs were certainly overstated and thus far new TLDs sales have been below expectations. Therefore, TLD operators are trying to find creative ways to sell domains, and drive value for their shareholders through innovation and cost savings measures, which has not been easy for most TLDs.
This also makes sense for domains, right?
So, there is no easy answer to standardization for domains. We want the benefits of standardization along with innovation to move forward.
Therefore, as difficult as it is sometimes is to work within ICANN’S multi-stakeholder group format, a practical approach might just be to work together to find common ground on the high-level core processes to form a platform from which variations can be considered against.
Don Ruiz 