This topic is especially sensitive to me, so please enjoy the enraged rant below.
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I have a better proposal:
STOP DOMAIN ABUSE!
Remember, back in the day, when .net meant you were a network services provider, or when .org was only used by non-profit organizations. Wasn't that confusing as hell?
What the hell happened?
The network had a beautiful, well planned design, and PEOPLE LIKE YOU threw it away.
YOU ARE THE PROBLEM, NOT GOOGLE.
I recently had a conversation, with someone I respect greatly, about creating a series of informational sites very specific to US audiences, and he had a fit when I insisted on using the .us TLD. (Blasphemy, right?) He demanded I use .io, for a site that contained exclusively United States related information... Seriously?
I will not participate in this madness, and the HN audience should know better.
It's really simple, you see: your new project has lots of video content? Considering .TV? Is your company based in Tuvalu? THEN DON'T USE IT.
.AM? That's Armenia
.FM? Federated States of Micronesia
.ME? Montenegro.
What makes this whole thing even more insane is that there are still tons of quality .us domain names, completely open for registration, and people insist on using TLDs of other random places! The Indian Ocean? Really?
But why? Just because it was an unintended use 20 years ago? "People like us" didn't throw away the beautiful design. Squatters did. There are literally zero remaining good .com names that are available.
ccTLDs stopped being used exclusively for their original purpose a long time ago. People are already used to them. The market has already adapted, and it opens up a lot of good branding opportunities. If you want to stay pure to the ideal of the spec, you're just holding yourself back.
It's kind of like a language - the original meaning of a word may be different than how it's used now, but the only meaning that matters is what people intend it to mean.
NO .org was not just for nonprofits it was every thing else that didn't fit the other TLD's
Some in the US non profit industry wanted to make it so retroactively when .org came up for renewal - but they got shot down in flames ( the red cross and Oxfam did not fit their narrow definition of a non profit for example)
BTW I used to work for a registrar and this is direct from the guy who lead our bid to run .org
Realistically, .us is never really going to see any real mass adoption by American businesses.
The only time consumers encounter a .us domain is in a spam email. In all my time on the internet, I can only think of a single .us site that I visited that was real, and that site eventually moved to .com when it became available.
It's the equivalent to opening up a store in the red light district.
Yes, I hope we can avert this situation when we reboot DNS hierarchy. In the meanwhile I don't see tilting against windmills to be a productive approach to the issues related.
-----
I have a better proposal:
STOP DOMAIN ABUSE!
Remember, back in the day, when .net meant you were a network services provider, or when .org was only used by non-profit organizations. Wasn't that confusing as hell?
What the hell happened?
The network had a beautiful, well planned design, and PEOPLE LIKE YOU threw it away.
YOU ARE THE PROBLEM, NOT GOOGLE.
I recently had a conversation, with someone I respect greatly, about creating a series of informational sites very specific to US audiences, and he had a fit when I insisted on using the .us TLD. (Blasphemy, right?) He demanded I use .io, for a site that contained exclusively United States related information... Seriously?
I will not participate in this madness, and the HN audience should know better.
It's really simple, you see: your new project has lots of video content? Considering .TV? Is your company based in Tuvalu? THEN DON'T USE IT.
.AM? That's Armenia .FM? Federated States of Micronesia .ME? Montenegro.
The list goes on and on. Wikipedia has a complete list of them, along with their intended uses and common abuses. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_doma...
What makes this whole thing even more insane is that there are still tons of quality .us domain names, completely open for registration, and people insist on using TLDs of other random places! The Indian Ocean? Really?
I want some of whatever everyone is smoking.
"Only you can prevent domain abuse."