Owning a domain name sounds like the best choice for one's online identity, but realistically it's not the best choice for about 198 million out of the 200 mill

Owning a domain name sounds like the best choice for one's online identity, but realistically it's not the best choice for about 198 million out of the 200 million people who use Facebook. First of all, for many people, the only online presence they have is their Facebook account. Why would they buy a domain name? So that they can point it to their Facebook profile? Secondly, owning a domain costs money and requires work to maintain (a lot of work if you are not tech-savvy). I'd guess a very small percentage of Facebook users would be willing to pay $10/year to use the site. So why would someone expect them to pay $10/year for a domain name? Finally, what's to say that a facebook vanity URL is not a better choice than a domain name? Musicians often advertise using their myspace URL because it's easy to remember than a domain - you only have to remember a single word. It's entirely possible, depending on the success of Facebook, for people to be asking each other in 5 years, "what's your facebook address?" as it's easier than the current method of searching Facebook by name and sifting through 100 people with that name