I don't buy/sell domains, so my opinions about the domain industry are from the perspective of a registrant. I think one of the things I think the current system is doing poorly is creating stability.
I think the registries are run by business and finance people, not product focused people. There's a lot of price discrimination and price fluctuation. It also seems like there's been a trend towards
reducing registrant rights and ICANN seems to get most of their "ideas" from the registries, not registrars or registrants. For example, it wasn't registrars or registrants that came up with the idea to remove price caps on some of the ogTLDs (original TLDs).
So, as a registrant, I immediately favor
.com as the safest TLD. There's strength in numbers and, if I'm going to invest into building on a TLD, I want the one that's the least risky in terms of price hikes, dispute rules, not failing, etc.. Registrants objectively have fewer rights on the nTLDs (new TLDs) than on the ogTLDs and, of the ogTLDs, only
.com and
.net still have price caps AFAIK. I'm sure there will be effort to remove those in 2024 when the contract expires, so hopefully
.com has enough registrants to resist the effort.
TLDR; If I'm going to buy in to a TLD, I want something low risk and predictable.
These are mine, forever! No transfer fees, no maintenance fees, no annual fees, nothing!
That screams "risky" to me. If you're not bearing the cost of operation and maintenance over the long term, someone else is, and it may not make financial sense for them to bear that cost long term. I've never seen anyone honor a lifetime sale of something that has ongoing costs. In my opinion, those kinds of promises increase the possibility of the TLD simply disappearing one day.
On the ICANN side, all (public) TLD owners are required to put up a bond that would cover 10 years of operating costs and, at least in theory, anyone using a TLD that fails is going to get an extended amount of time to marshal their customers onto a new domain. That reduces the risk of using the nTLDs, but I'd still rather build on a TLD like
.com that I
know won't disappear.
That 10 year bond makes it tough to beat ICANN on the risk side of things, so I think the only way anyone makes web3 domains work is if they're more innovative. That's why I've emphasized the lack of vision from the current registries above.
The entire premise of web3 is to circumvent regulatory bodies and centralized entities with a grip on content... this, in essence, was the foundation of many blockchains at least.
Yeah, and that's the only way I think it has a chance of working. In my opinion there's no way ICANN and the entrenched industry participants are going to be willing to coexist.
The best way I can see for web3 domains to gain traction is if they can market them as an identity product. Normal people don't care about domains and websites, but if you re-frame the concept of a domain as a global user handle, I think that makes them more attractive to much larger audience. Put another way, I think there's a lot of value in having a globally unique namespace like the current ICANN domains provide.
I've been extremely bullish on the concept of using domain names as globally unique, verifiable handles for years because I think domain (ownership) verification is a good technical solution to help combat impersonation and fraud.
Bluesky recently started allowing domain names as handles, so the concept is getting some traction. If I own
example.com, I don't have to be relegated to
@example_29 on Bluesky. Instead I can verify I own that domain and be
@example.com. If you extend that idea to other networks like YouTube, etc., I don't get stuck with mismatched handles everywhere. Instead of being
@exampletech_29 on YouTube and
@exampletechguy on Twitch, I can simply be
@example.com across all platforms.
To me, that's an improvement over the current system, especially for anyone that's trying to build an online brand and / or following. If I were a company that owned a ton of TLD registries, like Donuts, I'd be lobbying
hard for that idea to catch on. How much bigger does the domain industry get if the average person can register a domain to use as a globally unique name/handle?
That's one of the areas where I think web3 domains could possibly capitalize on the lack of vision and innovation on the ICANN side. I'm not sure if the entrenched platform players like YouTube, etc. would get onboard though. They benefit from the confusion created by unmatched handles because it makes it harder for content creators to move between platforms. The current status quo of rampant impersonation also benefits the entrenched platforms because users learn to distrust anyone on an alternate platform that claims to be a content creator they like. If domains acted as well known, verified, trustworthy handles, the confusion and risk associated with finding a creator on an alternate platform disappears and that's bad for someone like YouTube that benefits from having everyone trapped in their silo.
However, I don't think the current web3 domain ecosystem works for creating any kind of consistent end-user experience and I don't think it can be adapted to work.
Right now, there is a web3 domain alliance that has 51 member registrars. They aim to do exactly that. I believe their policy is to recognize whoever was first to create a particular tld in question.
That's very cool (and thanks for pointing it out). I think the only way web3 domains don't fail completely is if there's a "winner" that becomes the authority and, ignoring the split from ICANN, domains / namespaces remain globally unique. An alliance is a step in the right direction. It'll suck for the non-members that end up with worthless blockchains, but, in my opinion, a fractured system is one where they all fail.
The problem I have with the current setup is that it seems to be an alliance where the members are agreeing to collaborate on things that work for them, but it doesn't do much for someone like me if I'm going to buy their product. I
don't want a bunch of independent blockchains where picking the wrong one means their failure becomes my failure. It's way too risky for me to invest any time or money into using one of their domains as a brand and / or identity.
I also think that many companies with competing, independent goals all making different promises to their users results in a system that's too confusing and impossible for the average person to use. Most people need a system where they can visit a website, put a domain in their cart, and checkout with a credit card. Cryptocurrency is too complicated and too volatile for the average person. Even foreign exchange rates vs the US dollar are problematic in the current system.
What I think works better is one big system where the role of ICANN is replaced with an alliance of organizations participating in the same blockchain. For example, take something like ENS (the .eth system). They have a good technical system that prevents front-running, so start with a system like that. Then let all the web3 registrars build on top of it. That way there's a single authority which guarantees globally unique namespaces, and if a web3 registrar fails your domain is still on the blockchain.
At that point, I think things would be predictable enough to try to convince platform owners to start adding web3 domain verification as a form of identity / handle verification. In my opinion, that's the killer feature that drives adoption. Imagine if Twitter offered the traditional notoriety based verification, ICANN domain based verification, and web3 domain based verification:
Code:
Ryan Twenty Nine
Blue Check - @example
Blue "w" --- @example.com
Blue "w3" -- @example.w3tech
Use any (or all) of those as aliases for the same account and let the account owner decide which ones they want to display. That way I could push my followers to
@example.com if I prefer the ICANN system or
@example.w3tech if I prefer the web3 system.
If every platform used a system like that, I think it also creates a lot of possibilities related to reputation, trust, attestation, etc.. For example, what if my reputation on StackOverflow was linked to
@example.w3tech and a user visiting Twitter could see that (via a reputation plugin)?
I want the web to move to a system where domain verified handles become the norm and, as a regular user, I'll buy in to almost anything that I think has a chance of making it happen. That's half the reason I own a
.eth domain. I though there was a non-zero chance the
.eth name fad on Twitter would turn into technical verification and special handles.
Sadly, I think all of the current platforms are so tunnel visioned on keeping users in their silos that they'll never buy in to a system that makes names / handles consistent across services.
