The whole framework arounds TLDs is very strange to me. One one hand, opening up all these gTLDs was supposed to alleviate problems with domain parking and name

The whole framework arounds TLDs is very strange to me. One one hand, opening up all these gTLDs was supposed to alleviate problems with domain parking and name clashes (e.g. you could disambiguate your .blog from a .pizza restaurant). But all this did was shift the parking to other domains, some of which are ludicrously overpriced (anyone remember the .io hype?) Secondly, regardless of where your site is hosted, you're also bound by the registrar's laws/restrictions (especially for ccTLDs), which doesn't make sense for something that is purely a routing mechanism that translates a name to an IP. It'd be fine if domain names were plentiful, but domain hacks[0] also make people use TLDs without regard to considering their territory or any implications. The whole .org fiasco only proved further that this model with ICANN and for-profit registrars isn't tenable and a horrible fit for an open distributed internet. All these perverse incentives and political fuckery should not exist for something that is an essential part of a worldwide utility. I'd love if HNers could share any promising alternatives to our current DNS system. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_hack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_hack