[RSZC]

You're working under an inaccurate mental model of the web...or at least how the web used to be.

The OG model here is one of decentralization. In this model, the registrar (Google) isn't the owner of the domain. They're just a business that deals with the annoying details around registering a domain on your behalf, and you pay them a small fee to do so. Once again, the registrar can't sell or rent you anything, because they don't own anything to sell you. The registrar only sells the service of acting on your behalf.

Premium domains were originally seen as a shitty thing to do, because it put the domain registrars in the business of acting against their customers. Instead of registering a domain on behalf of their customers, they instead would buy the domains for themself, so they could then sell them at huge markup to their customers. Some registrars then took things further and pre-register domains their customers searched for, even if they never had any interest in buying the domain originally. Extra shitty.

The current .dev (or similar) situation once again feels really dirty to people thinking of the web under this traditional mental model. Domains aren't supposed to be just GIVEN to a single company to then charge whatever price they want. The web is supposed to be decentralized, and instead...we're here.

[shepherdjerred]

> They're just a business that deals with the annoying details around registering a domain on your behalf, and you pay them a small fee to do so.

I mean, yes, sure. That's technically how it works, but in practice I'm not sure that really matter. What happens to your domain if your Google account gets banned? Does your domain disappear? Does Google let you transfer it out?

[RSZC]

That's the point. In a distributed world, the domain registrar doesn't get to determine who gets a domain and who doesn't. If one registrar doesn't want to work with you, you can work with another.

This isn't some hypothetical, unrealistic utopia - this is *how the web worked*. We gave that away by giving registrars sole control over tlds.

It's easy to say 'well nobody really cares about .dev domains anyway' - but why will it just be .dev moving forward? Is it so hard to imagine a world where .com is no longer the default, and companies/individuals have to pay exorbitant monopoly prices to some gatekeeper?

I've never been an activist in this regard. It just feels really shitty to see something that used to belong to us all, everyone, equally, get divvied up and sold off.

[shepherdjerred]

> Is it so hard to imagine a world where .com is no longer the default, and companies/individuals have to pay exorbitant monopoly prices to some gatekeeper?

.com is not a requirement. Companies use non-standard TLDs everywhere. .com is still the default, but you would do just fine with other TLDs, and if some gatekeeper arrived this would only strengthen the argument as businesses would flock to lesser known TLDs.

Of all of the things I worry about regarding computing, the internet, etc., domains does not make the list.

[t-writescode]

> if one registrar doesn't want to work with you, you can work with another.

Registrars are domain *resellers* who sell your domain by buying it from the *registry* for you. There is only one Registry per TLD.

[lupire]

Imagine your whole company losing your domain because one of your employees offended Google ML model at some point and the AI bot declared you guilty by association.

[shepherdjerred]

This exact fear is why I'm planning to move my domains to Cloudflare (unless there's an even better registrar).

[t-writescode]

ICANN decides how the internet addresses and TLDs work at a base level. As far as I understand, TLDs have always been a monopoly for their owning registry. Verisign, the various country codes by their country's governments (or whoever they delegate to), PIR, and many many others.

That's why it was such a big deal when .net and .org were looking to change hands.