THIS! You hit the nail on the head! When I first went to get the domain for my main/personal email address, the .COM wasn't available...And I just didn't have

THIS! You hit the nail on the head! When I first went to get the domain for my main/personal email address, the .COM wasn't available...And I just didn't have an interest in the .NET or .ORG. So I went with .CC. I thought, "Hey it seems neat, slightly different (at the time) but not too weird, and its one letter shorter for people to type!" ...Or so I thought. Boy, has it been annoying with some people. Admittedly over the years it has become slightly easier, though there is the occasional exercise almost exactly as you described above, spelling it out as if to an infant. I supposed the audience on HN is likely tech-focused, but even today (september 2016), there are so many "civilians" out there who are NOT exposed to non-.COM domains, its quite surprising. So many people that you would think have by now been exposed to some technology - hey they use advanced mobile phones, "smart tvs", etc. - and they look at you stunned if you bring up an email address with a TLD from outside the U.S. I'm living here in U.S., but if you want to really stump some people give them email addresses like the following: * joe@smith.DE * jane@doe.FR * fred@johnson.CH Its quite interesting!