I don't like the pollution of the global namespace. If someone thinks, there should be a domain named today, fine, but don't put it in the global namespace by creating a new TLD. DNS is a hierarchical structure, there is no reason domains should all be only 4 segments long. Arguable 'com.' should have really been 'com.us.', but that's history.
1. People who can't understand how tld works, learn it. Changing the world to accomodate ignorance is not my preferred direction.
2. We don't link the concept of domain names to economically viable for an US citizen, since that is not a fair for probably a few billion other people.
I think this solves none of the current problems with domain names, but at least it does not add any new ones.
Domain names are still a finite space, given that a full domain name can be at most 253 characters, and each domain label at most 63 characters. “Requiring” a .com/.org/.net/.CC at the end isn’t really that much of a restriction.
By the way, madamelic.com appears to be available.
> By the way, madamelic.com appears to be available.
Hmmm! I may have to grab this one. The one I really want is madeline.com (it's owned by the family who made Madeline the book) but I am doubtful I will ever get that one without loads of money or ever, hah.
I am hesitant to say the domain because of spammers but it is the [shortened version of that name].today.
I’m more annoyed by products/companies choosing names that are just common words.
I'd argue that they're not freeform now. You need to pay ICANN something like 250k USD to consider your application for a new TLD, plus I think you need to convince them that you actually can operate the infrastructure required to reliably serve queries and subdomain registrations for that TLD.
I do agree that we have _way_ more TLDs now than the five or ten we had back in the 1990s, but the barrier to creating a new one is so large that I'd not describe them as "freeform".
Skill Issue