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I was one of the people who implemented Google's top-level domain system. One day in the microkitchen I met Vint Cerf and told him what I worked on. He very cur

by jart 4y ago

I was one of the people who implemented Google's top-level domain system. One day in the microkitchen I met Vint Cerf and told him what I worked on. He very curtly told me that he hates generic top-level domains, they confuse consumers, and ICANN should have been focusing on making .com / .org / .net better instead. It surprised me when I learned that I'd spent the last four years of my life working on a project where Google had bet big on gTLDs without the support of the father of the Internet. So I got a job on the TensorFlow team instead.

amelius 4y ago
> He very curtly told me that he hates generic top-level domains, they confuse consumers Perhaps someone should tell you that consumers hate advertisements, and they are confused by them too :)
- jart 4y ago
  Consumers also hate paying for things. I've always thought when Google came along that it was a shining beacon for being the one corporation that gives everything away for free.
  - IgorPartola 4y ago
    As a consumer I am totally fine paying for things. But I hate being interrupted with ads for irrelevant shit I don’t want or need. Google and every other online advertiser is hilariously bad at guessing what I might be shopping for at the moment. Amazon comes close by remembering what products I looked at last. But Google is worse than dogshit when it comes to this. I’ll give you a typical example where Google could be great but falls so short: I deliver to it on a silver platter a search query for a specific product “MRCOOL DIY 4th Gen 12k btu”. This is a very specific ductless mini split heat pump that retails for about $1750. I was looking to see if anyone had a cheaper price. Well Google Shopping mostly showed me results for either the 3rd Gen or a different BTU rating, in an apparent attempt to not show too few results. No a 36k btu unit isn’t a substitute. No, just the air handler isn’t a substitute. I have my credit card out and ready to go, buy Google is too busy showing me ads for window units! You know where I found my answer? Eventually I gave up on Google and went to the manufacturer’s website, looked through the list of authorized dealers and saw that Costco was on the list. I then looked there directly and found the unit at $300 cheaper than elsewhere. Bad search engine, no cookie!
    - Bakary 4y ago
      If you already know the product you are buying down to the model, Google isn't tailored for you. It's meant for people who have a vague idea and then pick what's at the top of the search results. This is why SEO has grown to be an entire profession.
      - IgorPartola 4y ago
        I thought Google was a search engine. Why doesn’t it search as much as it misleads and distracts?
        Bakary 4y ago
        Google is an ad company that produces a search engine, rather than a search engine that features ads. Although it may have been the latter in the olden days
      - amelius 4y ago
        > This is why SEO has grown to be an entire profession. Ads are basically the SEO of our economy as they try to change the ranking of products in our brains.
      - ysavir 4y ago
        I think that's a very narrow interpretation of what a search engine does. Or a narrow interpretation of what the GP was doing. Probably both. You can look at it as GP having a vague idea of how much he wants to pay for this product and where to pay for it, but Google failed to help him find clarity. Maybe the GP could have done better by searching "cheapest" or "sellers" or something like that, but one thing I've learned about modern search engines is that providing more query details nets you less applicable results. It's like every search engine takes all keywords with an "OR" mentality when it really should be an "AND". And a lot of this does come down to the advertising model. I wouldn't be surprised if this benefits google because having to try 3 or 4 search queries to find what you want puts more advertisements in front of you, and increases the odds you'll click on one.
  - pmoriarty 4y ago
    You pay Google for its services with your privacy.
  - ThePowerOfFuet 4y ago
    > Consumers also hate paying for things. I've always thought when Google came along that it was a shining beacon for being the one corporation that gives everything away for free. All of Google's offerings do indeed have a price, just not a financial one in most cases.
    - amelius 4y ago
      On top of that, consumers still pay financially for ads since the price for them is built into the price of the products and services people buy.
- Kiro 4y ago
  This kind of employee shaming is the reason we see less and less people posting amazing anecdotes as the one above.
pmoriarty 4y ago
"One day in the microkitchen I met Vint Cerf and told him what I worked on. He very curtly told me that he hates generic top-level domains, they confuse consumers, and ICANN should have been focusing on making .com / .org / .net better instead." You're lucky you didn't meet Stanislaw Ulam, who, when anyone told him about a project they were working on always responded with "What is that compared to E=mc^2 ?"
- jart 4y ago
  That's totally not the same thing though. Vint Cerf wasn't telling me I was but a mere footnote compared to his invention of TCP/IP. He thought gTLDs were actively harming the Internet.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
    Wait. Could you elaborate on this? What was his argument for that statement: "He thought gTLDs were actively harming the Internet." I might be missing something.
    - javajosh 4y ago
      I will hazard a guess. Cerf liked the top-level organization scheme com/org/edu because he worked hard on it and it carries meaningful information about the owner of the domain. E.g. identifies the domain-owner as either a for-profit corp, a non-profit org, or a school. By contrast new tlds like "app" or "website" imply absolutely nothing about the domain or the person/org that owns it. So there's a net loss in meaning. Effectively the domain variability has leaked into the tld. It's a worthy discussion for HN.
      - arbitrage 4y ago
        The .com and .org namespace has been diluted in meaning for decades. You can make no useful inference about the owner of a .com or a .org domain name. They literally signify nothing anymore.
onos 4y ago
Out of the pot and into the frying pan, eh?
- swyx 4y ago
  is this a tensorflow subtweet? i mean i am not too close to the matter but tensorflow has still been sort of a success hasnt it?

by jart 4y ago

amelius 4y ago

> He very curtly told me that he hates generic top-level domains, they confuse consumers Perhaps someone should tell you that consumers hate advertisements, and they are confused by them too :)

jart 4y ago
Consumers also hate paying for things. I've always thought when Google came along that it was a shining beacon for being the one corporation that gives everything away for free.
- IgorPartola 4y ago
  As a consumer I am totally fine paying for things. But I hate being interrupted with ads for irrelevant shit I don’t want or need. Google and every other online advertiser is hilariously bad at guessing what I might be shopping for at the moment. Amazon comes close by remembering what products I looked at last. But Google is worse than dogshit when it comes to this. I’ll give you a typical example where Google could be great but falls so short: I deliver to it on a silver platter a search query for a specific product “MRCOOL DIY 4th Gen 12k btu”. This is a very specific ductless mini split heat pump that retails for about $1750. I was looking to see if anyone had a cheaper price. Well Google Shopping mostly showed me results for either the 3rd Gen or a different BTU rating, in an apparent attempt to not show too few results. No a 36k btu unit isn’t a substitute. No, just the air handler isn’t a substitute. I have my credit card out and ready to go, buy Google is too busy showing me ads for window units! You know where I found my answer? Eventually I gave up on Google and went to the manufacturer’s website, looked through the list of authorized dealers and saw that Costco was on the list. I then looked there directly and found the unit at $300 cheaper than elsewhere. Bad search engine, no cookie!
  - Bakary 4y ago
    If you already know the product you are buying down to the model, Google isn't tailored for you. It's meant for people who have a vague idea and then pick what's at the top of the search results. This is why SEO has grown to be an entire profession.
    - IgorPartola 4y ago
      I thought Google was a search engine. Why doesn’t it search as much as it misleads and distracts?
      - Bakary 4y ago
        Google is an ad company that produces a search engine, rather than a search engine that features ads. Although it may have been the latter in the olden days
    - amelius 4y ago
      > This is why SEO has grown to be an entire profession. Ads are basically the SEO of our economy as they try to change the ranking of products in our brains.
    - ysavir 4y ago
      I think that's a very narrow interpretation of what a search engine does. Or a narrow interpretation of what the GP was doing. Probably both. You can look at it as GP having a vague idea of how much he wants to pay for this product and where to pay for it, but Google failed to help him find clarity. Maybe the GP could have done better by searching "cheapest" or "sellers" or something like that, but one thing I've learned about modern search engines is that providing more query details nets you less applicable results. It's like every search engine takes all keywords with an "OR" mentality when it really should be an "AND". And a lot of this does come down to the advertising model. I wouldn't be surprised if this benefits google because having to try 3 or 4 search queries to find what you want puts more advertisements in front of you, and increases the odds you'll click on one.
- pmoriarty 4y ago
  You pay Google for its services with your privacy.
- ThePowerOfFuet 4y ago
  > Consumers also hate paying for things. I've always thought when Google came along that it was a shining beacon for being the one corporation that gives everything away for free. All of Google's offerings do indeed have a price, just not a financial one in most cases.
  - amelius 4y ago
    On top of that, consumers still pay financially for ads since the price for them is built into the price of the products and services people buy.
Kiro 4y ago
This kind of employee shaming is the reason we see less and less people posting amazing anecdotes as the one above.

pmoriarty 4y ago

"One day in the microkitchen I met Vint Cerf and told him what I worked on. He very curtly told me that he hates generic top-level domains, they confuse consumers, and ICANN should have been focusing on making .com / .org / .net better instead." You're lucky you didn't meet Stanislaw Ulam, who, when anyone told him about a project they were working on always responded with "What is that compared to E=mc^2 ?"

jart 4y ago
That's totally not the same thing though. Vint Cerf wasn't telling me I was but a mere footnote compared to his invention of TCP/IP. He thought gTLDs were actively harming the Internet.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
  Wait. Could you elaborate on this? What was his argument for that statement: "He thought gTLDs were actively harming the Internet." I might be missing something.
  - javajosh 4y ago
    I will hazard a guess. Cerf liked the top-level organization scheme com/org/edu because he worked hard on it and it carries meaningful information about the owner of the domain. E.g. identifies the domain-owner as either a for-profit corp, a non-profit org, or a school. By contrast new tlds like "app" or "website" imply absolutely nothing about the domain or the person/org that owns it. So there's a net loss in meaning. Effectively the domain variability has leaked into the tld. It's a worthy discussion for HN.
    - arbitrage 4y ago
      The .com and .org namespace has been diluted in meaning for decades. You can make no useful inference about the owner of a .com or a .org domain name. They literally signify nothing anymore.

onos 4y ago

Out of the pot and into the frying pan, eh?

swyx 4y ago
is this a tensorflow subtweet? i mean i am not too close to the matter but tensorflow has still been sort of a success hasnt it?