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Comment by Rifu | Hacker News Reader

With the advent of so many new TLDs, I'm of the opinion that this isn't even that big of a problem anymore. Your 1st pick is being squatted? Just pick another TLD.

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To an extent this is true, but if domains get too cheap, the problem could resurface.

The effect of the new TLDs will be that domain names will stop being relevant. They are not that relevant even now, most people use Google rather than typing in a domain name, but ".com" is still present in people's memories. When more companies start using non-com domain names, the problem will just go away. It will create another mess, but that's a different problem.

> When more companies start using non-com domain names, the problem will just go away.

Ehh, I mean, will this ever actually happen? While .co and .io domains are popular in startups, consumers, especially non-technical ones, I think will prevent a move away from .com from happening.

As long as [Your name] results in your website on Google - the average user doesn't care if it ends in .ninja, .pizza, .io, or .com because they are never entering that information. They type in some amount of "Google" and search [Your Company Name] into Google. That's the average user.

Users who are advanced enough to even understand URL's will likely remember [X site is .org and Y site is .tokyo] or they'll bookmark the site if they find themselves forgetting often.

Even as a highly technically proficient user - I find myself using a keyword to search google for a domain name of a company if I am interested in finding their website.

There are a lot of new TLDs and I think companies will eventually start using those.

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