[changethe]

not sure what world you live in, but ccTLDs are widely used across the world, and in a lot of countries much preferred over .com.

german people, for example, will trust a business running on a .de domain much more than a .com one.

in most cases it is much preferred for an international company to run the country-specific website on the according ccTLD. companies that "want to address a global audience" are a specific set of companies that might prefer a "global" website, but most businesses will run country specific sites, not "global" sites.

also not sure what the UK NIC being "annoying in a bunch of different ways" has to do with anything, or even means.

seems to me like you are living in your own world, far detached from reality.

[seanhunter]

I’m happy to be wrong about this and hear about the thriving ccTLD scene but there’s no reason to get personal and say I’m detached from reality.

The way in which the UK nic used to be annoying that is relevant for this is that they used to make it much harder to register, transfer and renew domains. So at some point even though I had a .co.uk and a .com I just stopped trying to transfer the .co.uk and let it lapse at the next renewal date.

[changethe]

yeah you're right that some registries might have some weird quirks about certain things like transfers or additional mandatory requirements etc.

UK transfers are surely more complicated than they have to be (push vs. pull logic).

and I can also see where you're coming from, since in the UK it doesn't seem to be such a big thing.

but in most other non-english speaking countries (or even .com.au or co.nz), ccTLDs are actually a big trust factor. also for example high-end keyworddomains sell for a multiple of the respective .com domain price. sometimes as much as 5-10 times.