[snip]
>>
>>However, it isn't common for people to get land for essentially nothing,
>>you're expected to pay a normal commercial price, and when it is new land
>>just being opened for development, there's usually some kind of bidding
>>process or auction to determine who really wants the land most (or who is
>>willing to pay most for it, which is not quite the same, but is currently
>>the method used to make that decision).
>>
[snip]

Not necessarily.  Anecdotes abound of people who had the foresight to buy land for next to nothing that later turned out to very valuable.

>>
>>That could be done with domain names too, and is a method which has been
>>proposed from time to time.  The real issue them becomes, who gets all that
>>money from the first sale of these generic domains?  I have never seen
>>that there is anyone with any particular right to collect it.
>>
[snip]

As with land, the money should go to the person who had the foresight and skill to first register it.

>>
>>By your argument, since I had the foresight to be the first to register AU, >>I ought to be rich by now, from selling all the good sub-domain names off for >>millions.   I don't think that would have really been the right thing
>>to do, do you?
>>
[snip]

It would not have worked.  The sub-domains are only valuable now *because* people like you did not seek to sell off the domain names and thereby ensured the widespread use of the net.   Had you tried to sell off the domain names the net would not have taken off as it has and the domain names would have been worthless.  Their value flows entirely from the net's popularity.  Noble behaviour like yours was necessary to get the Internet up to a critical mass.

>>
>>The alternative is to create an industry of people making themselves wealthy
>>simply by having fluked on getting the right domain name at the right time,
>>with no real outlay, or endeavour, or anything else involved.   It would be
>>kind of like the lottery, except you'd know what you were getting before
>>you laid out your few $'s, instead of after.   This is not something that I
>>ever wanted to encourage.
>>
[snip]

Good luck to them.

I can empathise with your emotional objections to this but the reality is that the horse has bolted.  Commercial interests have hi-jacked the Internet (and, some say, driven its growth).  Whatever generic names that are left are being snapped up as we speak.  In the end the names will go to those that are prepared to pay the most for them.  This is not ideal but it will not seriously disadvantage anyone.  For any generic domain name there are 1000's of similar names that can be used.  The
Macquarie thesaurus is a big book.

We should just let those in the .com.au domain haggle over their preferred generics and, in the meantime, the .org.au, .net.au and .edu.au domains can be preserved as less commercially oriented spaces where noble gestures like yours can abound.

Cheers
David Wise
Brisbane