Re: <nettime> Do domain names matter?

[Morlock Elloi <morlockelloi@yahoo.com>]

> the network, but by innovation at its edges. As end-user applications 
> mature, they increasingly allow individuals to develop and share their 
> own naming systems—not to destroy the DNS, but to render it irrelevant.

Exactly. There are two sides to this.

First, the namespace has been conquered and fully exploited. URLs had their
window of public interest and now it's closed. There is simply no way to
impress eyeballs with yet another domain name in the late 90-ties fashion. No
one cares. Yahoo and google stay, becase they were launched in the right
window.

Second, the "value" of DNS was perceived ease of remebering and typing in a
shit-shop's name in browser's URL field, presumably because the victim saw it
on a billboard or a TV, so it could be remembered easily. The mechanics have
changed by now - I cannot remember the last time I got to the new URL for the
first time by typing it from my memory. It's HREFed from another document and
then I bookmark/e-mail it around. The search engines played a major role here.

URLs lost their habitat in people's heads - or, at least, new ones can't get in
there. Technology is enabling private namespaces (to the horror of marketeers)
and the difference between domain name and IP address will soon become
cosmetic.

There are many consequences of this - one cheerful comes right up to my mind -
ICANN is about to die and let's hope that loads of parasites that fed there
won't be able to adapt on time and jump the new host, whatever it may be.



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