CircleID

NAME RECOGNITION

Philosophically, the only 'purpose' of most new TLDs (e.g. .name, .aero, .pro, .coop) is simply to create a domain with a different favoritism bent from the current set.

I think there should be fewer new TLDs than there are coming on line now.  The system (at least for the gTLDs) began as first come, first served*.  An exception: unless someone with lots of money (e.g. gumby.com, and - nearly - etoy.com) can sue you into submission (SLAPP) changed things strongly in favor of large companies, and the UDRP normalized that bent in favor of trademark holders, which is a near-synonym, and against any legally dumb domain owner (importantly including legally dumb squatters,legally dumb non-squatters, and excluding legally smart squatters).
These changes were a step backward.  A venue for recognized brands should exist, but it shouldn't be .com, because that was profoundly unfair to the pre-existing users.  RealNames was that venue 'till Microsoft fucked it over, replacing it with .com.  The bent of this venue SHOULD be current name recognition.  If we can come up with a good way to measure it, that would be ideal, e.g. in this venue, any name can be challenged, and the winner is the one that has the greatest name recognition, on a per capita basis, worldwide. (Determining this cheaply is a non-trivial problem.) This is a better metric than 'trademarked' or 'backed by $ for lawyers' or 'got here first', or the metrics behind .name, .aero, .pro, .coop!  It is the metric that was behind these TLDs.  So, do other folks thing this is the right metric for a new TLD?  What's a good TLD?

*Back when I first registered elvey.com, it didn't even cost anything, and macdonalds.com was still available, and /etc/hosts had recently contained all hosts! The NSF backbone AUP still held, at least nominally, and .net and .org meant something.  (Ah, the good 'ol days!)

Yes expanding the domain space is a good idea. But centralnic domain prices are $110 bucks for
two years when you can get a .com for $16 for two years thsat is not gonna help expand the domain space. Forget the philosophical case what about the practical case??  When will centralnic reduce their prices and hence the appeal of using .us.com and .uk.com - as it is I might as well register the .co.uk for £5. Get real centralnic take a gamble and see what a price slash might do 4 your business.