Oddbean

Not even close. Sure once you Know the key, the key can tell you what alias it wants to be called, and you save it in your bookmarks/phone book as such, but that is marginally better than say http title element. the actual problem is the inverse lookup, how do you find the key by a human memorable name that you heard on Radio or a concert or whatever... that is simply impossible yo solve without either ICANN or Namecoin

I don't think it is interesting, you could do the same thing with any name system on block chain, with specifying dns name server, which is a much better fit, than Nostr relays with its json nonsense. As if dns does not have delegation already, it is called NS records. So forget about Nostr, the question now is Bitcoin more trust worthy then ICANN? maybe, but on the other hand ICANN is 100 times more widely recognised and at scale, will always be cheaper than names on Bitcoin. either way, I don't care about encouraging hording names and extracting rent.

Bitcoin is definitely more trust worthy than ICANN. There's no rent seeking with bitcoin, it just operates as a time-chain to operate as a tie-breaker if two people want the same name. And you can also make a fun trading game. There's no rent seeking because it's not renewed every year, bitcoin is property rights.

To be honest. The question is if we need global names at all. Why bother if you can go with bookmarked alias/pet names for hash/pubkey based addresses and when you encounter a new key, you query your social network to get the pet/aliases of trusted peers. thats what ppl do already. they trust bookmarks and links they find on websites and trust into browser autocompletion in url bars... nobody types addresses manually. you literally in practice dont need global names. this is not how anyone uses stuff. otherwise ppl consume digitally and for offline you have QR codes... so essentially backwards to introduce a can of worms we can go without. its a shitcoin features, e.g. ENS or whatever ... they solve a problem we dont really have in practice

Global naming system creates a standard reference point. It's useful for some things, and less useful for others. If it were not useful, everyone would let their domain names expire. But they dont, so people see value in it.

Local names (bookmarks) and autocomplete definitely work for some cases, but they alone without global short names objectively provide worse user experience than what everyone is used to. Couple that with a much larger attack surface for fishing scams and it creates a not very secure paradigm for an average user, onion services proved this point over the years. Also consider that such Bitcoin based system can work in parallel with cheaper randomised domains of Pubky. It doesn’t have to scale enormously, it will create a free market where people who want a short name will have to pay the costs of doing so. As far as I am concerned Nomen would not burden Bitcoin network significantly, so the cost of having a decentralised short name would be the same as the cost of sending a normal on-chain Bitcoin transaction, which seems more than reasonable.

I want to give every adult a sovereign domain, that can't be done on Bitcoin. I don't know what more to say. The only thing we can do is invest in UX solutions to all the problems you mentioned. There will never be a future where everyone who wants a domain on Bitcoin can have one, so even if it is superior to ICANN (which it is not because at leas ICANN names works everywhere) it is a dead end. You are free to use it. And good luck convincing people to buy a name that they can't use anywhere, and then they can't use your app before they buy that useless name. Namecoin existed forever man, no one cares, let's try something with less barriers to entry.

yeah. we might be different. where we wanna go, nobody needs to buy any names. The problem you want to solve is a problem that doesnt exist. It is a problem made up by people who want to offer a solution that makes them money. A lot of web3 is just that, even though bitcoin is enough. You dont understand what i am saying if you think somebody has to "buy a name". 🤷‍♀️

I get your point, but I see no reasons for both solutions coexisting and providing their unique benefits either in tandem or separately. As for the Namecoin and other shitcoin solutions, that is just silly and we all understand it. However using Bitcoin + NOSTR seems like an appropriate truly censorship resistant and decentralised solution for short names.

Technically 13 root servers belonging to 12 different organisations, but the structure is more complex because there are observers and stakeholders that have some voice and observers status, from governments to private sector and businesses etc. There track record is very good, and ther is no close second in terms of being a good custodian of the commons they oversee. It is a n extraordinary claim that some other organisations should be equally trusted. And even then, why would we move from what we already trust.

ICANN is worse. it is not decentralized. Domains regularly get taken down or censored. Also the certificates browsers and tools ship with that are needed to make it all work are ridiculous given that it could work wothput any of that. Of course, shitco8ners want to scam and control, so they always argue in favor and then squeeze themselves in as intermediaries. There is really no need to use domains or global names at all. This is just not what people rely on in practice and normal people nyway dont understand what they are trusting in.

you can already see that with nostr. the many relays and more is better. they are technically supppsed to be interchangeable anyway.... that is the goal in p2p. that is what bittorrent brought to the mainstream. No need to trust a specific server or cloud to whatever levels it is centralized/federated. no hierarchy needed. The issue is to believe or promote top level global names in the first place. public keys are all we need and that needs no icann

"Domains regularly get taken down or censored". Mind elaborting on that and providing some evidence? I'm not doubting you that domains can and do get taken down by ICANN. But regularly? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

it doesnt even need icann itself. try to reach certain domains in certain countries. try to reach the pirate bay. try to reach the internet archive in the UK try to reach sci hub a lot of open source security related tooling is also censored and then of course people get deplatformed in some countries ... thats a very common practice. oh and torrent trackers where victim too. ...theblist goes on. I am actually surprised by your question

DNS or domains are a hierarchical system and there are multiple levels on which censorship can occur. it can always escalate to the next level. it is routinely used and enabled by the way DNS works.

Gather as many reputable partners as you can, create a non-profit organization, define clear governance model, and then spend the rest of your life proving not only that you will be a good steward of this commons, but also that people should care at all.