he creates a very convincing arguement, i don't think .mobi is a good comparison as google control their gtld's where icann control .mobi what icann have effectively done is lost control ! am i right ? yes there may be "rules" but google, NAB, BMW etc are now in control of who gets what.
Don't follow any of this. *If* Icann "controlled" a tld before I don't see how that is any different now.
To take the .mobi example the registry could do all sorts of things, they had auctions, failed request for proposals plans where domains were going to be given out based on usage etc rather than just money.
.mobi was backed by Google, Microsoft, Samsung, Nokia. So these guys are the poster boys of failed gtld investment...there was all the "plans" and press releases in the world but at the end of the day all that happened was a bunch of domainers typed in their credit card numbers.
The difference now is that some of these tlds are private but I don't see how that will make them move successful. Mostly they'll end up underused in my view, even worse than the past gtlds failures. Of course it is always different, it has to be for people to invest, but this is really the "throw the entire pie at wall and hope something happens" moment. If this fails it is all over for new tlds in my view.