I don't have some nefarious desire to scare people away from the TLD of their choosing. Really I'm bringing it up to be like "why would you even, like, want some 3rd rate domain instead of getting a .com" so I don't think there's anything to correct
It's not reverence? I think that you're missing that it was a requirement. Basically every country (that followed ICANN's original rules) does this: .com.au, .co.nz, .co.jp, .com.mx, .co.ke (+ the org/net variants for each country)
The US is the only country where registering .com was allowed by ICANN (and not .com.us or something).
ICANN relaxed these rules in the 2010s I think, so now you can register 2LDs at most/all of those country TLDs.
Its not hard to tell for things like ".uk" or other serious suffixes.
It only (maybe) becomes hard(er) to tell for all the vanity ccTLDs that came along in the 2000s. But even then 10 seconds on WHOIS and Google should fix any doubt.
> about the reverence of `co.uk`
What are you on about ? Lots of other countries do it too. Japan is one example given already here, but there are dozens. It is very common practice for country tlds.
5 seconds on wikipedia or google would have stopped them spreading completely dangerous FUD about .co.uk.
Implying lack of trust in `co.uk`
Implying `co.uk` may suffer the same fate at `.name`
Complete FUD.
;)
(Edit: although I should add that I'm hopeful that things have improved there over the last few years).
No.
Oversimplified summary:
There was a period around 2010 when the management at the time wanted to follow a more commercial route with various unrelated "investments".
Nominet members made it impeccably clear in a very loud manner to management that it would not be tolerated.
Management insisted on a vote which they inevitably lost.
Management departed.
TL;DR Don't piss off Nominet members