Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Do unicode URLs actually provide any real value? yes. Not everybody speaks english. >Every web user must be already used to typing Latin characters because so many major websites use them. s/web user/existing web user/ Unicode domains are one more piece required for the net to be as inclusive as possible.
On the other hand, unicode domains may lead to balkanization of the net. How would you even type in something like борщ.рф (and before you ask, you can easily translate its contents using Google Translate after entering the URL)? And everyone, just everyone in Russia is already capable of typing in stuff in ASCII. So the upside is small and diminishing (more people learn English over time and that's a beautiful thing…
But declaring English the lingua franca means that people from other cultures will be at a perennial disadvantage vis-a-vis native speakers, or that their native language would be neglected.
There's an obvious benefit we get from everyone speaking English, but there's also a non-obvious cost to the homogenisation of cultures. Already, there are languages dying (and dead), and with every languages dies a potentially different and meaningful way to look at the world.
In any case, I'd leave such decisions to those actually affected by them. People tend to react in surprising ways to other cultures telling them what they're worth or not (c. f. "Balkanisation")
