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.dev is available for public registration... I have one.
"vanity" domains are $200/yr or more Including "{firstname}.dev" Nonsense. If Google's worried about domain squatters, it controls the TLD rules and can come up with a less moneygrab strategy. Perhaps require a Github account and limit to one domain per customer? FCFS is fairer than extortion.
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We shouldn't be surprised. The whole TLD debacle has been a bit cash grab, which hasn't been beneficial to anyone but a few. Take the subsequent acquired domain of ".dev" by Google for instance, which then reserved it for internal usage only.
.dev is available for public registration... I have one.
> The web ad giant is keeping these domains "completely closed for the sole use of Google," as its paperwork filed[0] for .dev reads.
> Why not also share the wealth of .dev with developers? Well, in a word: branding. Google's successful application for .dev reads: "The proposed gTLD will provide Google with direct association to the term 'dev', which is an abbreviation of the word 'development'. The mission of this gTLD, .dev, is to provide a dedicated domain space in which Google can enact second-level domains specific to its projects in development."
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/13/google_developer_gt...
0 - https://gtldresult.icann.org/applicationstatus/applicationde...
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> Registering a TLD in Handshake may end up being significantly more complicated and significantly more costly than buying a .org domain today It’s significantly easier than the process is today. It’s very hard to get a TLD from ICANN as the process consists of a non refundable application fee of 185k with no guarantees you’ll be approved. > There's no market information I can find about what a TLD will cost on avera…
> Rather than artificial set costs, the market will dictate this. But you're coming into this conversation claiming that Handshake is going to democratize TLDs, that anyone will be able to buy one. We don't really know that the average cost of a TLD won't spike up to a thousand dollars, right? We don't know that every fortune 500 company in the world and every government in the world won't step in and snatch up every…
There is a scarcity of coins which will help to prevent this. Whenever you bid on a name, your coins are further locked up until the end of the auction.
> Remember, when .com and .org came out, they were also owned by an organization that didn't want to gouge people.
No I don’t remember this - it never happened. Quick history lesson: It was 50 dollars to get a .com or any name, and later 35 dollars. Network solutions had a monopoly on it.
> The decentralization benefits of Handshake are entirely encapsulated in ordinary people owning their own TLDs.
Absolutely! In addition, it serves to solve issues with the CA system. It democratizes ownership of the internet and makes it safer.
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Already happened: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethos_Capital
Isn't this level of quid pro quo corruption punishable? Or does nobody even care anymore?
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> Handshake doesn't solve that problem. TLD owners will still be able to rent-seek, and they'll still hold monopolies over anyone who buys from them. This statement is cryptographically false. Handshake does give ownership of names in the form of TLDs to people and therefore, the owner of said TLD will not be subject to rent from name ownership. That being said, you are right that someone could still take a TLD and r…
Only for TLD owners. The moment I'm renting a subdomain under another person's TLD, the problem stops being solved. > people will have alternatives to .org, should .org continue to do what the people don’t want. Handshake does not address or solve the problem of domain migration in any way. If you rent a subdomain from a Handshake TLD owner, and they turn out to be evil, you are in the exact same position as you woul…
I agree. Luckily, projects and services meant to facilitate this have spawned in the community [1][2].
Definitely great questions and thoughts. Please keep them coming as we need to be hyper critical of this, as it’s the first time in mankind that an opportunity to be self governed in a system used by all people exists and has a real opportunity to succeed.
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The problem isn’t just .org but instead you’ll have to look one step up - ICANN and the US government [1]. [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/02/registrars-raise...
I can tell that you really want me to believe that ICANN and the US government are the problem, and that Handshake is the solution. But you still have not addressed how Handshake solves the three main problems I have with the .org sale: * The .org owners should not be allowed to rent-seek, but instead continue to provide the same level of service and fees that we have come to expect. * The control and governance of T…
When the centralized monopoly is all for raising prices, it becomes clear that market forces ceased to exist.
In free markets, pricing is controlled by the markets themselves, not by any single actor.
Handshake absolutely makes TLDs a free market.
> The control and governance of TLDs should be handled by a non-corrupt governing body with the powers to ensure that only well-behaved operators may control TLD domains (where "well-behaved" can mean "will not rent-seek").
I agree with this. Again, free markets control this. Consider the difference between the market for gum (market controlled) versus the market for patented drugs (single actor controlled).
> To enforce this in the face of corrupt actors, the governing body for TLDs needs to be able to take back control of a TLD from a corrupted operator.
If the community collectively decides to fork, it can fork.
The people hold the power.
Thanks for pointing out these questions and allowing me to directly address how Handshake solves these problems, and please keep them coming as it helps us to better understand what information isn’t well explained, and explain it!
This whole thing is ridiculous. It makes me both laugh and cry. Selling org to an "unavailable name" private equity firm is just ironic to the extreme.
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"vanity" domains are $200/yr or more Including "{firstname}.dev" Nonsense. If Google's worried about domain squatters, it controls the TLD rules and can come up with a less moneygrab strategy. Perhaps require a Github account and limit to one domain per customer? FCFS is fairer than extortion.
I paid $12 for my .dev domain. I bought it from Google.
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I would argue that centralized control lends itself to corruption more easily and distributed control. After all, if there exist a central authority, only that one authority being corrupt messes up everything. On the other hand, a distributed scenario makes it more difficult for a handful of well-connected profit-motivated bad actors to corrupt the entire thing. But a distributed set-up is more complex (and more expe…
I would argue that a rich actor can more easily corrupt a large number of small autonomous feifdoms by a combination of bribes, equivocations, and good ol' divide-and-conquer strategies. A low barrier to entry to acquire absolute control over a small but critical piece of Internet routing infrastructure may democratize that infrastructure in theory , but in practice it also lowers the barrier to entry for corruption…
if one rich actor can gobble up the small decentralized pieces then they have become a single centralized piece.
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Well, I will say this about the TLD "debacle", when I recently went looking for a domain name made out of real words, but not in what you'd call the "A list" (i.e., not "drugs.com" or "money.com"), they have at least made it ineffectual now for squatters to squat on everything across all the useful TLDs. Someone wanted a couple $K for the .com variant but there were several other useful variants completely unregister…
Does anyone actually use or go to services on super-generic TLDs like that? I can't think of any billion-dollar businesses that exist at .com. I can't imagine they're as valuable as people make them out to be, because businesses have brands that aren't generic words like "money" or "drugs". There's "amazon" but the business has nothing do with rainforests, so it's not like they're benefitting from traffic from people…
facebook.com maybe as well although it has given the word a new meaning.