I think TLDs solve a problem, to some extent, but not the one ICANN seems to think they solve. You can have puppies.com and puppies.org — I suppose that helps

I think TLDs solve a problem, to some extent, but not the one ICANN seems to think they solve. You can have puppies.com and puppies.org — I suppose that helps if you run an organization to help puppies, and I own company that sells puppies. But that does not help when there’s another organization that helps puppies in some other country. Ah, but we have ccTLDs — you can be puppies.us, and the other guy can be puppies.in. That’s a different naming convention entirely, awesome! But, really, if you tell a bunch of people about your great new puppy venture, most of them are just going to go to puppies.com (thanks for the business!) or search for something on Google. TLDs are meaningless! They’re just semi-random bullshit that we stick onto domain names so there can be more than one of each domain, to reduce the chance of someone getting stabbed over who owns the one true “puppies”. (All of the above taken? Be hip and get puppi.es!) Of course, in the real real world, puppies.com, puppies.org, puppies.us, puppies.in, and puppi.es are all taken by domain squatters, so you and your dogs’ dreams are fucked anyway… Unless you want to race me to puppy.dog.