<<<<<< Most users will HATE new gTLDs. It adds confusion. >>>>> Okay,
it's been a couple of weeks since I challenged this particular fallacy. Time to repeat
myself.
The above argument has been uttered too many times, but it makes NO sense
whatsoever.
HOW can new gTLDs create confusion? I mean, reeeeaaaaaally think
about this. HOW can a .web, .bank, .food, .movie, .shop cause confusion? We are not
talking about .rt, .xe4, .fipz.
If people don't understand what .web might mean,
or .bank, or .shop, then something went terribly wrong with their education. Perhaps
no one read to them at night. As I have said in the past, they need to go back and
examine what went wrong that made them so deficient in their language and thinking
skills.
As for the rest of us: should we disadvantage ourselves because others
are incompetant? And I truly DO mean that. A person who is confused by what the various
gTLDs mean, has a few issues, if the gTLDs are themselves clear--as in the cases
indicated above. Personally, I resent having to have my world legislated to the lowest
segment of society.
Yet in all honesty, I think the statement, "New gTLDs will
cause
confusion" is more of an intentional smoke screen or a mindless mantra
that's origin has long since been lost. Truth be told, I don't think many people
will be confused. I have discussed the concept of gTLDs with more than a handful
of people--some not the brightest or even a little bit tech savvy--and they all grasp
.web, .shop, .movie, etc.
Let's be honest. And as I said--if there are those among
us who don't comprehend what a .movie means--let's bring them to our level of being
mentally "with-it" . . . and not shape our world around their incapacity. Imagine
if someone had said, "There will be those who don't understand what the Internet
is. Let's not have one." Or better yet. . . Imagine if someone had said, "This wheel
thing is going to confuse people. Let's stick with squares and oblongs."
Let's
advance according to our needs and our imagination. Give the world a paradigm shift
every few years. It's called evolution. It's called existence. Thus sayeth WorldThoughts.
*************************************************
The
above was taken pretty much word for word from a previous post of mine, but I saw
no need to change much.
To those who remember the post, I apologize--but it was
apparently due for playback.
I think the only way a descriptive gTLD might be confusing
is if it is unidentifiable to most languages in the world. That is why we have to
work with word roots (that are common in most languages), and need to work with words
that are wholley identifiable in all languages.
And as someone recently pointed
out on this board. . . ".com" is not even a word. It is a word fragment--one
that many people aren't sure the derivation of. ("commerce"). Yet even these folks
didn't have confusion when they hit the Internet for the first time. The confusion
might been in how to operate a keyboard, where to type a URL, how to define parameters
in a search engines query. But have you ever seen someone gawk at the keyboard and
say, "I don't understand what to do. What the hell is a .net?"
It will be no different
with .web, .shop, .arts, etc.
The time it will take people to get USED to it is
quite another thing. Time passes, and it is inevitable.
In this contemporary world,
we CONSTANTLY witness new area codes being added to the TELEPHONE root. And it only
takes time before we get used to them.
And consider the children of today's society--and
the children not yet born.
They will look at a world with .com, .net, .org,
.web, .shop, .store, .food, .bank, .art, .info, .school, .xxx, .reg, .movie, etc.,
etc., . . . and they will whisk right through them.
We insult them, and
ourselves, when we say, "Having multiple gTLDs will cause confusion."
Nonsense.