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Wait. Could you elaborate on this? What was his argument for that statement:

"He thought gTLDs were actively harming the Internet."

I might be missing something.




I will hazard a guess. Cerf liked the top-level organization scheme com/org/edu because he worked hard on it and it carries meaningful information about the owner of the domain. E.g. identifies the domain-owner as either a for-profit corp, a non-profit org, or a school. By contrast new tlds like "app" or "website" imply absolutely nothing about the domain or the person/org that owns it. So there's a net loss in meaning. Effectively the domain variability has leaked into the tld.

It's a worthy discussion for HN.


The .com and .org namespace has been diluted in meaning for decades.

You can make no useful inference about the owner of a .com or a .org domain name. They literally signify nothing anymore.


Originally the hierarchy was supposed to be much more defined. But domains are so cheap nobody bothers. You see it a bit in .gov and .edu where subdomains are actually delegated somewhat sometimes.


Love your speculation, agree it would make a wonderful discussion here.




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