[ygaels_armpit]

This seems like it has gotten out of control - it is a basic key/value lookup, and we've created a rent-seeking, global series of registries to further suck good money from people.

I worked briefly at a registry - it is money for jam.

I don't know if the DNS protocol and all the related ones are fundamentally broken or need fixing, but it seems to me the problem is ICANN and the web that spreads out from under it.

Why can't we just create an alternate ... distributed naming system, except without the rent-seeking/government ownership attached? I mean, this focus on how important the last bit is is ridiculous, the namespace doesn't have to be artificially restricted, beyond what the protocol might require.

I guess I have a simplistic view and probably lack a bit of history, and there must be something preventing it. Do the top-level servers collude, and help to create something like ICANN, or was it taken out of people's hands etc?

[toyg]

> except without the rent-seeking/government ownership attached?

Because people like money. This TLD business literally invented a new economic activity, and one with great margins. It doesn't really hurt anyone, has little to no cost, and makes a pretty penny. People With Money love stuff like this; if tomorrow they could invent a marketable TLD system for physical addresses, phone numbers or anything else, they'd jump at the chance.

This is just how the capitalist world works: stuff exists to make money, everything else is a bonus.

[ygaels_armpit]

Agreed, I guess the way that works in general is just disappointing in that it doesn't produce anything meaningful or advance anything (to my mind). It's spinning wheels and burning energy for no appreciable reason, to make some people rich.

[ygaels_armpit]

What is the end game on that though? Everyone for themselves, buy a shotgun, and hick USA?

[robalfonso]

Legal/Govermental/Regulatory issues, someone has to deal with it. No single organization is going to deal with every country and their various legal issues. Registries and Registrars help abstract a lot of that (ICANN definitely doesn't want to deal with it). I don't disagree with the ease of storing a few million records or more. That is not the real overhead and is in reality only a fraction of whats involved.

[ygaels_armpit]

Yes the added verification etc on top of the key/value lookup is the meat of it I guess. A complicated problem, I guess it'd be nice to somehow remove the money factor from a critical function of the net.