• Bobby Turkalino@lemmy.yachts
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      5 days ago

      Not all TLDs are, just the ccTLDs. The .io domain was never intended to be such a popular one, but tech bros were like “zomg io! That’s like input/output!! So techie!!!” Meanwhile, .tech exists and is not country-specific but is far less popular for some reason.

      • taiyang@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        I generally don’t trust .io for that particular reason. It’s the Steve Jobs of the world picking that for buzz; the Steve Wozniaks of the world would simply choose .org.

        And…, to make sure my joke didn’t lead me to find it Woz had a fucking io website, I looked it up and his personal cite is fucking org. Lol

        • CosmoNova@lemmy.world
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          5 days ago

          Isn’t .org reserved for non-profit websites though? At least on the basis of internet etiquette? Some .io websites I know are completely monetized and about making money. And of course not everyone can afford a .com domain with a cool name right off the bat.

      • Tanoh@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        Meanwhile, .tech exists and is not country-specific but is far less popular for some reason.

        Simple answer: length.

        Two chars look a lot better than something with more chars, and all two chars TLD are ccTLDs.

        • tiramichu@lemm.ee
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          5 days ago

          Another reason is brand identity.

          Using ‘.tech’ or ‘.flights’ or .sports’ for your site feels too “on the nose” and gives vibes of like browsing some directory where things are categorised and sorted. Even worse it implies there are other sites under the same category, and those other sites may be competitors, and this dilutes strength of brand.

          lt also suggests strongly what the business does, and while that might seem desirable at first it actually isn’t from a corporate perspective because it means the company becomes tied to their business area and can’t expand and grow out of it into other things.

          I think this is a major part of why descriptive TLDs continue to be less preferred over ‘meaningless’ two letter TLDs, because companies want the focus to be on the main part of the domain, not the TLD.

  • dohpaz42@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    I don’t understand why they don’t just migrate .io into a non-country code domain. Hell, they could auction it off to anybody (company, country, or person) who wants it bad enough. Let it live alongside the other custom domains.

      • doc@fedia.io
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        Yep. This is such a weird fear monger topic.

        If the country that owns IO ceases to exist then IANA will just make it an ICANN generic TLD. Such a widely used TLD won’t be allowed to disappear. The rules are all made up anyway.

    • exu@feditown.com
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      Because two letter TLDs are reserved for countries. They made the mistake already with .su

      • SquiffSquiff@lemmy.world
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        Oh wow! And that reservation makes so much sense under these circumstances. Obviously, we could never consider the possibility of a three-letter TLD for a country or migrating a two-letter TLD to a non country specific name because reasons.

  • peopleproblems@lemmy.world
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    That means the British Indian Ocean Territory will cease to exist, along with the .io domain and countless websites.

    That is most definitely not how it works.

    • Virkkunen@fedia.io
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      That is definitely how it works unless IANA creates an exception for the .io TLD and keeps it alive.

      • Keelhaul@sh.itjust.works
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        Yeah, and even the .su (Soviet Union) domain still exists. There is no way that a TLD as popular as .io will not remain active.

      • peopleproblems@lemmy.world
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        No, that is not how the ccTLD is enforced by IANA. It has sole authority, and it is not automatic is any way. There have been a total of two retired domains, one in like 95 and km 2000.

        They will not retire a domain under heavy use such as .io.

  • abbotsbury@lemmy.world
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    How do we make domains more democratic? It seems so backwards that massive corporations and groups of massive corporations are the only bodies that get to decide things like this that aren’t literally states.

    • barsoap@lemm.ee
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      ICANN isn’t really a massive organisation, it’s a technocratic non-profit with a buttload of advisory committees, including one for end users. The rules surrounding ccTLDs were tightened after Russia didn’t sunset .su, so they tried to take politics out of it, make it a wholly rules-based thing, but now it figures that the rule everyone wants to have is “decide on a case-by-case basis”.

      There’s also been various initiatives regarding reform of internet governance over the decades but in the end noone can agree on what would be better so ICANN keeps on chugging on.

      You know what would bring a quick end to this? If Mauritius doesn’t incorporate those islands into itself, letting them stay an autonomous territory. From British Indian Ocean Territory to Mauritian Indian Ocean Territory.

        • Zier@fedia.io
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          Yes, only the US uses .gov. All other countries use .gov.uk where the last decimal is their country code. And any country can get a .com without a .com.uk country code attached. That has changed. All .gov are official United States government sites exclusively.

        • reddig33@lemmy.world
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          .gov (.gov.us) is used in the US to distinguish between commercial sites and sites run by state, federal, and local government institutions. It helps cut down on fraud. There are a few fucked up government sites in some states that use.com because ICANN isn’t doing their fucking job.

          There’s also .mil for military sites. And .net for internet service providers. These were the original oldie domains. I’m not opppsed to adding .blog to the list, but I despise all of these confusing random cash grab domains that ICANN approves these days. “.social” is really just an org, and “.biz” is really just a com.

      • abbotsbury@lemmy.world
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        Not opposed to that, but I’m more concerned with being able to get one at low cost, would need at least .net to kinda expand the pool.

    • Takumidesh@lemmy.world
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      You could create your own DNS server with its own routes and registrars.

      If you got enough people to use your DNS network you could create your own registrars and your own rules.

      Users would need to switch to your DNS, but otherwise there isn’t anything about how the Internet works that requires you to use the big dog DNS

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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      Make a p2p parallel system, cryptography-based. You subscribe to a root identity, and you fetch (via something, it can be NOSTR, it can be anything) its messages, which describe the current state of the domain list.

      If you don’t like that particular name provider, you may choose some other.

      There may even be some voting protocol from among few different providers, on whether to accept a name change. Then you may use a few of them simultaneously.

      Easy. The hard thing is to write the software (I have Aspergers, ADHD, social anxiety, chronic cold and house pests, don’t bother me, and I’m also stupid) and to make people use it.

      Something between Usenet, Fidonet and Freenet, LOL.

    • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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      Because they prop up the infra to support them right?

        • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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          “it seems so backwards”

          They set the shit up, so they decided the behaviors.

          • abbotsbury@lemmy.world
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            Yes, it is rather backwards for a handful of companies to own entire blocks of IP addresses just because. The infrastructure was massively funded by public dollars, it should be publicly owned.

            • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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              A fair point indeed, but that’s not how it is. Public dollars were funneled one-way into private infra, in many cases.

              • abbotsbury@lemmy.world
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                but that’s not how it is

                Doesn’t mean it can’t be that way, though, One way nationalization also exists.

        • Lazycog@sopuli.xyz
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          I believe so aswell, but there is lemmy.ml for example, which apparently is meant to stand for “marxism-leninism” in that specific instance (.ml is Mali’s country TLD).

      • fatalicus@lemmy.world
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        When I registered an account , I made sure to do so with an instance whose TLD is connected to something that should be around for a couple of billion years more.

        • Scrollone@feddit.it
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          Unluckily, the .world domain is ultimately owned by Ethos Capital, which is a private company that well may cease to exist in a short time.