> If it were not for the huge cost everybody could have its own gTLD. We could end up being surprised that a given company still has the .com suffix. "It's a sm

> If it were not for the huge cost everybody could have its own gTLD. We could end up being surprised that a given company still has the .com suffix. "It's a small one, they don't have money", we'll think. Precisely, and one of the many reasons gTLDs are so distasteful. It marginalizes smaller businesses that cannot (yet) afford to play with the big-boys who throw around $185,000 as if it's nothing. Prior to this, domain registration was mostly a level playing field of first-come-first-served. In a world where we often decry regulation that may benefit big business over small business, ICANN pulled this stunt which is egregiously and by design biased toward big business and it was more or less ignored by everyone. Above, you pointed out that .canon is distinct from .dev because Canon is a trademarked name. Although I understand trademarks have been used to dislodge domain squatters, I believe that's extremely rare. Making a distinction between trademarks and generic terms creates ambiguity. The gray area of deciding between a company named "DEV" wanting to (or more likely feeling they need to) spend $185,000 to protect their identity and a domain registrar wanting to spend $185,000 to sell subdomains in "dev" is yet another reason gTLDs were a bad idea.