On Tue, 2 Jul 2019 at 05:20, Barrack Otieno <otieno.barrack@gmail.com> wrote:

i would posit that there is room for new TLDs the only problem is limited effort to build the capacity of end users on how they can take advantage of the TLDs.

I'm intrigued.

How does a non-registrant end-user "take advantage" of new gTLDs, beyond using them to connect to Internet destinations?

Out of all the things end-users need to know about -- defensive security, their privacy rights, how to avoid scams and captive gateways like internet.org -- I genuinely would like to know what you believe non-registrant end users need to know.

If the intended "public education" is thinly-skinned marketing designed to sell second-level domains to people who don't need it, that's harmful and I would actively work to prevent it.

I am very passionate about end user campaigns and can attest to the fact that when a user is properly educated, they not only invest in themselves but in others whom they beleive will benefit. I equate a website to a book. The world has never been saturated with books hence i don't think the world can be saturated with TLDs.

This logic (website = book = TLD) is absolutely absurd since none of those equivalences make sense.

You're looking at this absolutely backwards. Encourage African innovation and entrepreneurship on the Internet. Whether this results in new domains being needed or not is an implementation detail, up to the entrepreneur. Many paths may go towards mobile apps that don't even need special domains, or a corner of an existing site (like a company page on Facebook, vendor area on Alibaba or blog on Wordpress.com).

Promoting domains before they have purpose is like selling desks and rubber bands and staplers to people who have no offices. It does a disservice to the innovators and does nothing to benefit non-registrant end-users.

Hey ... Here's an idea. How about At-Large policy being driven by factors OTHER than trying to get people to buy things!?!?

- Evan