Think of the economics this way:
1. Many, but not all, dropping domains are worth a lot more than the cost of registration. This margin would be 100% available to the general public if everyone had an equal chance of registering the names. That margin is worth many thousands of dollars per day.
2. Registrars have all of the ultimate power, as they can beat the ordinary person with the registrar connections to the registry.
3. With auction systems the rule (and that is the way it is headed), the registrars will be in a position to grab most of the margin. They will continue to push this up because they are trying to make a profit (which I don't blame them).
4. With WLS, some of the margin will go to NSI and they will even make $ on subscriptions of no real value (fools will put $ down for names that will never drop).
5. With WLS, competition among registrars will push their share of the margin to very low levels. Some have said that they will price WLS at no profit as a loss leader to gain customers & market share.
Bottom Line: With WLS, registrars will have most to lose. Without WLS, registrars will end up with most of the profits.
People who are discussing this issue on the basis of Buy Domains (and a few other big players) vs. everyone else are completely missing the point.
If the US Congress really investigated this situation and looked at the anti-trust implications and the issues of fairness, they would back ICANN. Many of us will (should!) go to our congressmen and say that the anti-WLS forces are mostly just the registrars looking out for their profits. From the standpoint of Joe End User, the people the Congress has the most obligation to protect, he has the best chance of getting a break under WLS. An individual who really wants a name will be willing to buy a subscription before most speculators will.