

The Web Is Unsustainable - rm2kdev
http://www.shanehudson.net/2012/07/29/the-web-is-unsustainable/

======
icebraining
_Perhaps we need a way to navigate to websites without requiring the use of a
unique identifier such as domain names._

No. I don't care if the identifier is an English word or a SHA512 hash; you
need identifier for _linking_. Linking is what makes the Web what it is, not
the fact that you can write a company's name and append .com to go to its
website.

 _On the other hand, ipv6 (and being a number based system, future versions
are possible) will allow us to carry on without domain names, so if you don’t
mind users needing to use an ip address then there is no problem._

I'm sorry no, that doesn't really work. What happens when you move from EC2 to
your own dedicated server, or vice-versa? You lose all your links?

~~~
dalore
Not defending him but ipv6 supports mobile IP allowing you to move but retain
your ip by having it rerouted to your new one.

~~~
pyre
For how long? Does the old IP just route to the new one forever?

~~~
dalore
You got to set it up, but there is no reason it can't last forever since there
are enough addresses. And when they get rerouted they can advertise that the
change is permanent and have people use the new one.

------
mbleigh
Domains operate in a manner to real estate. We've been through the "wild west"
land grab of domains at this point and now we're working toward the next
stage, whatever that ends up being. Remember that domain names are
transferable so the reality is that, of all of the millions of registered
domains, only those which are profiting their creators are truly taken without
much chance of being reclaimed (probably 1% or fewer).

This is a problem that will sort itself out, there's no cause for concern.

~~~
zcvosdfdgj
I agree with you.. but, then shouldn't we be asking ICANN to raise the
registration fees?

Because right now, registration fees are so low that squatters can register
thousands of names, and then demand a few thousand dollars if you won't one of
those.

Raising it to (say) $25 keeps names affordable for everyone, and would raise
the cost to squatters substantially... which should make more names available.

~~~
jarofgreen
Really dislike any suggestion like this.

It won't help much, it'll just price the low end out of the market. Given that
a good domain can sell for thousands, you'd have to raise the fees a lot to
deter people chasing that one hit.

Meanwhile, you damage lots of small people who have domains for personal
things that never were intended to make money. The Internet was meant to be an
open place with low barriers of participation.

~~~
viscanti
~$25 probably wouldn't stop the issue, but something ~$100 might. "GOOD"
domains will always sell for well over that, regardless of a price floor.
Owning a good domain name is like owning any other valuable good. Pricing
around $100 helps with the long-tail of domain names. Most domains aren't
worth sitting on for hundreds of dollars (in the majority of cases, where
there's not an obvious quick flip).

I'd even be for a tiered pricing structure. Domains under ~7 characters could
be $100+, domains over 15 characters could be significantly cheaper.

~~~
jarofgreen
> but something ~$100 might

What about the cost to innocent parties? Really dislike this!

> Domains under ~7 characters could be $100+, domains over 15 characters could
> be significantly cheaper.

Now that could be good - Charge inversely by the character.

Also has the side effect of discouraging URL shortening services :-)

------
gbog
The diagnostic is correct, domain names are not sustainable. The drug
prescribed is not.

The solution I thing will come up is again hashes. Now we have hashes for file
handling (in git), hashes for users in Google+, hashes for money (bitcoin). I
think we are going towards a world full of hashes (pun half-intended).

If we had a single hash used for identifiying a piece of content (eg a given
blog post, the home for this blog, a comment to this blog post), then a web
site would just be a hash table, you would ask for hash 3ed44a2d38 and get the
content. That may include other hashes. Then search engines would just be
weighted keyword->hash tables. Content would be passed along servers and
proxies in a p2p way. Because hash is unique to a content, you won't care if
the bits are served by X or Y, as long as the hash checks.

Then no need for domain names anymore: Wanna go to BBC website? Search for BBC
and pray your search engine has it as #1. Wanna bookmark the home of BBC
website or an article? Store the hash.

Issues:

\- Over reliance on search engine and links. Answer: we do have this issue
already.

\- Authentication of content: is this really BBC website? This can be fixed
similarly to current certification system, and you would certify your main
home's hash.

\- BS! That's no real hash! What do I mean? Yes, right, the main issue is that
content is changing, so a real hash would be changing too. I said google user
id is a hash, that's wrong (or is it?), it looks like one though. I have been
fiddling too much with git recently. For me the best of the world is when
files, dirs, actions, everything is unique, unmodifiable, and identified per
its hash. Any modification of the state of the world generates new content,
relations, and their hashes. Infinite history for free. But how to apply this
to the Web? Can we? Nearing one o'clock in the morning here: I may clarify
tomorrow.

~~~
shanehudson
I suggested two ideas I had, not saying by any means they are correct... just
wanted to start a discussion. And it worked! Some very great points in this
post and all other comments.

------
pg
_Useful and readable domain names are running out._

This is false as of this moment. Startups in the current batch have been able
to find decent names that weren't taken. Maybe there will start to be a
problem in the future, but 26^n is big.

~~~
dllthomas
26^n is big (for n > 7) but also irrelevant. "Useful and readable" is a tiny
fraction of that space.

Edited to add:

While there's obviously some correlation between small n and the usefulness
and reasonableness of the name, my point was not primarily related to length -
the parenthetical was added as an afterthought. I was simply pointing out that
the overwhelming majority of sequences of letters are not going to be easy to
use or remember.

~~~
pg
Dropbox was getdropbox.com for a long time, which is 10 letters.

Prepending "get" (or sticking "app" on the end) always makes me kind of
queasy, but it worked well enough for Dropbox. I kind of like Exec's approach
of using iamexec.com.

~~~
philip1209
Square, SquareUp.com, owns Square.com but still uses the former domain.

------
hluska
I think this is a case where someone is trying to come up with technical
solutions for a perception problem. Jumping back to the Harry's Chips example,
why do consumers have such negative views of URLs like this:

harrys-chips-of-york.com

harrys.yorkbusinesses.com

harrys.chipshops.com

harryschips.info

DNS (as it stands) is a perfect system, but {short name/no dashes or
numbers}.com is unsustainable. As soon as people start looking at
subdomains/atypical tlds as being just as valuable, the problem will right
itself.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Short name no dashes dot com is not unsustainable; it's completely over with
for those without funding. There's nothing wrong with .info and the like (I
use a .info for my personal domain) except perception. My hope is that the new
GTLD rules will make the domain extension less important, and if so it will
make squatting values go down.

------
tsahyt
Kind of off-topic, I'm slightly reminded of this: <http://xkcd.com/1007/>

------
maxharris
People have been making claims of this type ("the Web/Internet is
unsustainable") for at least the past twenty years, and I've been reading
articles to this effect for the past sixteen years. Every single one of them
was wrong.

With such a bold claim, and such an awful track record, why should I believe
that _this_ time will be different? You can only cry "wolf!" so many times
before the only rational thing I can do is ignore you.

Also, why is it a requirement that I be able to get a short domain for cheap?
The fact that some names are cheap and others are not is no more surprising
than the fact that some real estate locations are worth more than others, or
that some people have higher incomes than others. All of those are the
inevitable consequence of free choices made to make every individual chooser's
life better (to the best of their knowledge and ability), which is a great
thing!

------
jarofgreen
I don't like any solution that means the user personally has to deal with IPs.
The abstraction away from IP's to names is a brilliant feature with all kinds
of benefits, and one other areas should be looking at.

I even recently proposed a quick hack for the phone system:
<http://jarofgreen.co.uk/2012/07/phone-numbers-in-dns/> :-)

Also just wanted to point out that your solution 1 needs to incorporate the
use case that people want to look at local services away from their local
areas at times: to take just one example, thousands of theatre people are
about to descend on Edinburgh, UK, for the Festival from all over the world,
and I'm sure they have checked out the local area online first.

Don't know what the solution is, but then I'm not really convinced there is a
problem with this ...

------
jackalope
_That is one option, allowing people to own the domain names but also allow
many websites to somehow have the same name (with the unique identifier being
IP or similar)._

I've always been frustrated that the WWW URI doesn't support name-based
virtual hosts in the authority section. While a name-based virtual host is
usually specified as a domain name, it doesn't need to be. Many web sites
share a single IP, so it should be possible to access them without requiring
DNS resolution (examples showing name-based virtual host in brackets as one
possible approach):

    
    
        http://[www.example.com]192.0.2.1/
        http://[www.example.org]192.0.2.1/
        http://[www.example.net]192.0.2.1/
        http://[foo]192.0.2.1/
    

Or requiring DNS resolution:

    
    
        http://[www.example.org]www.example.com/
        http://[foo]www.example.com/
    

Note that this doesn't serve the same purpose as a subdomain, because it
allows one to explicitly specify the name-based virtual host to serve from a
domain or IP address, instead of having a single part serve two very different
purposes.

Of course there are issues. For example, you could create URIs like:

    
    
        http://[www.google.com]192.0.2.1/
    

And SSL poses a challenge:

    
    
        https://[www.example.org]www.example.com/
        https://[foo]www.example.com/
        https://[www.example.com]192.0.2.1/
    

But from a technical perspective, this opens up a lot of possibilities.
Currently, the only way to achieve this is to write your own headers when
making a request, so it's already possible, just not supported in mainstream
clients.

------
tibix
I think you're looking for a problem where there is none. The only case for a
"problem in the distribution of domains" would be your "local shops that can't
grab their names".

The DNS is a very well thought system, I think it's one of my favorite
protocols. ICANN (or any sub-agancy of it) can just decide to take some
domains to make the names more "granular". A first approach I thought of in
just a few seconds is, with the US as an example, taking over "state
code".(com|org|net|...) and only delegate those to small business operating
within one state. You get a lot of "domains" for free.

------
AshleysBrain
ICANN are selling TLDs like .pepsi and .sony - if we really run out can't we
just open that up to the general public at a low cost, the same way anyone can
get a .com? Then all the chip shops in the world can use harrys.chips,
johns.chips, etc. Other companies could register their own TLDs as well, with
the added advantage the URL is a single word which is the name of the company.
The _only_ reason this is not already possible for all but the biggest
companies is ICANN charges such a high fee for a TLD - IIRC it's about $180k,
with no guarantee you actually get it.

~~~
T-hawk
Well, that just shifts the problem of name resolution into the TLD space.
Trying to arbitrate .apple between Apple Computer and Apple Records is no
different than trying to arbitrate apple.com between them.

More generally, the problem is that any single namespace containing
approximately the entirety of the world's electronic communication will result
in name collisions. This already occurs in natural language absent of
electronic communications. Monster Park in San Francisco is sponsored by
Monster Cable, except that it's commonly thought to be the careers site
Monster, or even Monster Energy Drink.

This collision problem will happen no matter what the medium is. .com names
will collide, TLDs will collide, top search results will collide, keywords
(like AOL's) will collide, all because _natural language_ collides. The best
we can do is include an arbitration system to resolve obvious offenses when
possible while keeping out the speculators and spammers, which approximately
is what ICANN is doing with the new TLDs.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
You're completely right, but most of today's problems are caused by artificial
scarcity leading to speculation.

------
blackhole
I feel like domain names are difficult to find not because they are really
being used up, but rather because there is no system governing them. What if
we treated domains like trademarks, so if you don't use it, or stop using it,
someone else who is using it can take the domain from you?

The thing is, this is also a problem for company names, and product names,
and... well just about everything involving names. Almost everything is
running out of names. We need to do a better job of recycling old names if any
of this is going to be sustainable across any market.

~~~
icebraining
Define "use".

------
yaix
This is one of those articles I wish I could downvote.

Soon, companies will be able to compete with gTLD, some have registered
hundreds and will push them as the part of the internet for different topics.
Google's ".lol" is probably the most obvious example, finally a place for all
the funny sites.

After 27 years, people will start to get used to the fact that the internet is
more than just ".com" (and maybe one's country's ccTLD).

~~~
freshhawk
I had to scroll down awfully far in the comments before I found a sane
comment.

There are reasonable complaints about the process of producing these new tlds
right now, but anyone who thinks there is any solution to this problem other
than new tlds has not actually thought about the problem or doesn't understand
how the domain name system works.

> Perhaps we need a way to navigate to websites without requiring the use of a
> unique identifier such as domain names

Or we add a .suffix to make it unique, like how the domain name system
_already works_ FFS.

------
arosien
Content-centric networking aims to solve some of these problems:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content-centric_networking>

"Content-centric networking (also content-based networking, data-oriented
networking or named data networking) is an alternative approach to the
architecture of computer networks. Its founding principle is that a
communication network should allow a user to focus on the data he or she
needs, rather than having to reference a specific, physical location where
that data is to be retrieved from. This stems from the fact that the vast
majority of current Internet usage (a "high 90% level of traffic") consists of
data being disseminated from a source to a number of users.

The contemporary Internet architecture revolves around a host-based
conversation model, created in the 1970s to allow geographically distributed
users to use a few big, immobile computers. The content-centric networking
seeks to adapt the network architecture to current network usage patterns."

------
smashing
It is funny that <http://www.shanehudson.com/> is the AdvoCare site, same as
<http://www.advocare.com/> registered on: 22-Jul-95(1), and shanehudson.com
was registered on 10-Mar-2001(2). His site, shanehudson.net, has been
registered since 26 Oct 2007 17:12:02(3), yet the following domain names are
still available shanehudson.org, shanehudson.info, shanehudson.biz,
shanehudson.us, etc.

Maybe the Web will become unsustainable when those domain names are
registered.

(1) <http://www.networksolutions.com/whois-search/advocare.com>

(2) <http://www.networksolutions.com/whois-search/shanehudson.com>

(3) <http://www.networksolutions.com/whois-search/shanehudson.net>

------
lmm
This sounds like the argument google etc. are using for making everything
"social". You don't type in a domain name for "ham's fish and chips", you just
search for it, and google knows which community you're part of and directs you
to the correct one.

Obviously everyone here will hate that idea, but "normal" users may welcome
it.

~~~
greenyoda
How would this scheme support hyperlinks from one page to another? You
wouldn't want the page that your hyperlink points to to change based on the
changing whims of some search engine.

~~~
lmm
Hyperlinks could work as they currently do, pointing to the (hidden, non-
human-readable) real URL - but the UI would never show the URL. Or we could
just accept that they change - in normal conversation you don't give out
unambiguous pointers to specific things, you say words and trust they'll mean
the same thing to listeners (at least within your community). If someone's
telling me about a concept or a news story, I probably don't want a link to a
specific web page.

------
jarofgreen
How to stop domain squatters:

Years ago I remember cases where people who were deemed to just be "squatting"
on a domain could have it taken away by a arbitration-like service at the
registry. There were tests to help them decide if they were truly squatting or
were using it themselves. Even so, opponents argued that there were many
mistakes, that the arbitration services favored big companies and the process
was abused to shut down legitimate comment (like "companyxsucks.com" sites)
and the only people who really liked this system were the lawyers.

Is this a route we want to go down? Have some kind of arbitration service who
can decide if someone is a squatter and reclaim their domains?

------
jderick
Google already solved this problem. Domain names are just an implementation
detail now.

~~~
brianfryer
Are you saying that having an appropriate domain name is no longer relevant
because the simple fact that Google is aware of a site, people (read:
potential customers) have a likely chance of finding it?

Domain names containing relevant keywords are given a boost in Google SERPs
for said keywords. For instance, google "marketing click" (no quotes) -- three
of the top four results have the keywords in the domain name (click-
marketing.net, clickmarketing.com, click-marketing.co.uk).

While not always true (google "juice fast"; you'll notice that none of the top
10 results have the keyword in the domain name), there is plenty of evidence
to support a clear benefit for a domain name to contain relevant keywords.

------
perlpimp
Domain names are just nameplate, people keep forgetting that. Utility lies
with search engines. What would really solve end user usablity problem is
improving search - and companies improving their standing not through
interrupt marketing but via inbound marketing. This name-issue is moot point,
because if service is large, useful and popular people will remember it or
will easily find it via google. Use bookmarks and what not. Sure it is
somewhat important in the startup market if you company depends of VC funds.
Business card based advertising of your brand is tenuous at best... my 2c

------
dools
As a couple of others have alluded to, I think the solution here is pretty
simple: search. Businesses have had to distinguish themselves by name and
brand already for a couple of centuries and I've seen advertisements on a
number of occasions use instructions to "Google us" before. Just because
search is currently a bit wild west doesn't mean it will always be that way. I
can imagine a more standardised search algorithm being provided as an
alternative to DNS which would be used both for locating sites and linking to
them.

------
veritas9
Isn't this what the new TLD domains rollout addressing?

~~~
huggyface
There already are a large number of mostly ignored TLDs (.info anyone?).
Everyone wants .com's.

I would argue that for most users domain names simply aren't important
anymore. When I want to go to the website for, say a local bicycle shop, I
just Google them, and it doesn't matter if they have companyname.com or
companyname-of-burlington.com, the GOOG finds them (not just by my terms but
also proximal searching, etc).

To some degree I do think this "problem" will be self-resolving -- the domain
landgrab is largely over, and many are stuck with domains that they are
costing them yearly for absolutely nothing (when searching for domains I tend
to find that the overwhelming majority that are taken are dead-ends or
placeholders. At some point people will just abandon them).

------
dllthomas
I think the problem is that our domain name hierarchy is way too shallow and
way too contentless. Domains like .info are worth less than .com because I
have to remember that it's a .info, and there's no good pattern that tells me
I should be looking for foo.info instead of the foo.com for the foo I want.

------
aneth4
The English language is unsustainable. We'll never find word for all these new
things we are inventing. All the simple ones are taken.

And really, how many of these businesses will be around in 50 years? I think
there might be some churn.

------
alexshye
Many of the good domain names are still "available".. for the right price. It
just means that companies need to resort to domains like getdropbox.com before
trying to acquire the good ones like dropbox.com.

------
tymekpavel
Isn't ICANN introducing .anything domain names? Once these become more
prevalent, the price will go down and this will be a non-issue.

------
drats
Flagged for the stupidest headline and "problem" I've read in a week.

------
programminggeek
The Earth Is Unsustainable...

tl;dr: All the good land is taken and there is no more free or cheap property
available that is appealing to me. PANIC!

------
geuis
What this fellow is missing is actual numbers of professional squatters to
regular squatters (people like you and me).

Are most unavailable, unused domains being held by a few hundred/thousand
pros, or does the long tail of people like me who maintain about 20-30 domains
that remain unused out number the pros?

There's a market opportunity here somewhere. We have lots of people wanting
unused domains, and lots of domains locked away not making much money.

