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New top-level domains a money grab and a mistake: Paul Vixie

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Re: New top-level domains a money grab and a mistake: Paul Vixie

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could also just get people to give up the TLDs they're not using. I find it somewhat depressing that emailing folks about domain names they're not using results in either a) being ignored or b) being asked to pay $40,000. I'm of the view if you're sitting on names that you're keeping around exclusively because you think they could net you a windfall in the future then you're a bit of an internet twat.

>> You could also just get people to give up the TLDs they're not using. I think you're confused, and probably mean "give up the domains" they're not using. Not "give up the TLDs". This is not a viable option, though. Even though someone may think they're not using the domain, there's a good chance they could be using it (like using it for email even though the a record doesn't resolve to anything) or they could be u…

I'm not confused but you're right, I did mean to type domains rather than TLDs.

Anyways, I'm actually arguably in favour or a Land Value Tax. Land is a super fininte resource and holding onto it for no reason other than as an investment screws over anybody who isn't there first. This is great if you have land, for whatever reason, but not to great if you grow up poor and want to live anywhere near your place of work in a place like London where the property market is completely broken.

The domains landscape is similar, except that it is indeed easier to create new TLDs than manage the mess of domain speculation.

Re: New top-level domains a money grab and a mistake: Paul Vixie

#52

Maybe the way it happened involved corruption. But I personally like the new TLD's, not all of them but some like .team, .work, .chat. A few other sports specific domains are also nice, like .soccer, .tennis, .football ... Almost all of the meaningful .com's .org's and .net's are gone. It's time we had new TLD's that make more sense.

I like some of the ones like .ninja, .xyz, and .space just because they're cheap more interesting then .me which is what used to pop up a lot for personal projects I was linked to.

Re: New top-level domains a money grab and a mistake: Paul Vixie

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could also just get people to give up the TLDs they're not using. I find it somewhat depressing that emailing folks about domain names they're not using results in either a) being ignored or b) being asked to pay $40,000. I'm of the view if you're sitting on names that you're keeping around exclusively because you think they could net you a windfall in the future then you're a bit of an internet twat.

The high price was an excellent sign that they were overly scarce (for an otherwise limitless resource), and that more were needed. I think the new gTLDs are great. Most of them aren't exorbitantly expensive, and generally speaking they free you up to have an address on the big wild internet that makes way more sense than the contrived naming conventions we resorted to using in the past (eg: get[???].com, [???]app.co…

Except those will get eaten up rapidly as well. Is [???].horse better than get[???].com?

Re: New top-level domains a money grab and a mistake: Paul Vixie

#54

This is not surprising but I fail to see the downside. The internet is complex already. The new top level domains won't add much to that. I think that there was no end-user demand whatsoever for more so-called DNS extensions, [or] global generic top-level domains (gTLDs)," he said. I run a lot of websites and it was a pain to find good domain names in the last 15 years. With all the new TLDs that problem is completel…

You could also just get people to give up the TLDs they're not using. I find it somewhat depressing that emailing folks about domain names they're not using results in either a) being ignored or b) being asked to pay $40,000. I'm of the view if you're sitting on names that you're keeping around exclusively because you think they could net you a windfall in the future then you're a bit of an internet twat.

I have a few nice names I get regular emails about. I have one such name where the guys found where I worked and figured out how to reach my office phone. It was a bit annoying, but I told them I had plans for the domain.

Re: New top-level domains a money grab and a mistake: Paul Vixie

#55
The new TLDs allow more expressiveness and creativity. IMO, there should be even more of them. The limitations should be similar to the limitations placed on searchable results: cost, law, preventing harm, etc.

It is interesting to think about why we are limiting the creativity here. Are we looking out for a human being's typical memory? A router's memory? Network capacity? All seem ample to support loads of new TLDs.

Re: New top-level domains a money grab and a mistake: Paul Vixie

#56
post #18

Maybe Microsoft, Google, Apple and Mozilla could get together, and configure their OSes and browsers to do DNS lookups by default using a system different than ICANN's via security updates. That would make ICANN mostly irrelevant in less than a year. Also, it improves security, since you are already trusting your browser vendor and would no longer need to trust ICANN, registrars and the CA system as well.

This would be an appallingly bad precedent to set.

As soon as there was precedent and infrastructure for this, a huge number of state actors would either set this up maliciously, or start auctioning off country-specific DNS rights (aka start extorting money from companies -- "oh do you want to own google.com in ? that will be $2mm/yr").

Re: New top-level domains a money grab and a mistake: Paul Vixie

#58

Maybe the way it happened involved corruption. But I personally like the new TLD's, not all of them but some like .team, .work, .chat. A few other sports specific domains are also nice, like .soccer, .tennis, .football ... Almost all of the meaningful .com's .org's and .net's are gone. It's time we had new TLD's that make more sense.

agree. I think that a "globally unique brand" will go the same way as a "globally unique username", for exactly the same reasons. Goodbye "apple" hello "apple computers"... oh wait, that already happened...

And then right back again: http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/09/apple-drops-computer-from...

Re: New top-level domains a money grab and a mistake: Paul Vixie

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

agree. I think that a "globally unique brand" will go the same way as a "globally unique username", for exactly the same reasons. Goodbye "apple" hello "apple computers"... oh wait, that already happened...

And then right back again: http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/09/apple-drops-computer-from...

Which reinforces the point. There are two companies (at least) called Apple. They are both allowed to have the same name because they are in different industries.

If we only allow companies to have ".com" then which of these two companies, both called Apple, would have "apple.com"?

Having multiple TLDs allows for disambiguation. It's a good thing.

Re: New top-level domains a money grab and a mistake: Paul Vixie

#60

This is not surprising but I fail to see the downside. The internet is complex already. The new top level domains won't add much to that. I think that there was no end-user demand whatsoever for more so-called DNS extensions, [or] global generic top-level domains (gTLDs)," he said. I run a lot of websites and it was a pain to find good domain names in the last 15 years. With all the new TLDs that problem is completel…

You could also just get people to give up the TLDs they're not using. I find it somewhat depressing that emailing folks about domain names they're not using results in either a) being ignored or b) being asked to pay $40,000. I'm of the view if you're sitting on names that you're keeping around exclusively because you think they could net you a windfall in the future then you're a bit of an internet twat.

> I find it somewhat depressing that emailing folks about domain names they're not using results in either a) being ignored or b) being asked to pay $40,000.

Some domains that appear unused are actually being used.

I've got a very minimal, largely neglected, web presence on my domain, but would not even consider selling it unless the price was very very high.

That's because I am using it--for email. If I were to sell my domain I'd have to update my information with thousands of sites, companies, and individuals.

That's not something I'd be willing to undertake lightly. Any place that has my email that I forget to update is a place where my account could be easily hijacked.

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