It is not hard to find articles discussion incompetence or corruption within ICANN.  Cronyism keeps the insiders in control.  Millions of dollars are spent on luxury travel to regulate technology that allows us to travel electronically for almost nothing.  Rules are written but followed only occasionally, which seems to be the norm for any large bureaucracy.  Public communications is limited to only what the masses are allowed to hear.  Simple tasks that could be settled in one discussion can take months to accomplish.  This bureaucracy can easily be squashed by the free market.

There are many who want to limit change in order to keep the current multi-billion dollar cash flow in the domain market.  If I can make a few bucks a year for millions of domains from customers who think that the domain rental model is the only option, why would I want to see that change to a one-time sale model?  If I am simply a benefactor who travels the world at the expense of this effective tax on domain holders, should I do my part to keep my expense checks coming?

However the technology is taking life where there is no longer a need for a single root, but each TLD is a peer root.  The need for a central authority is being eliminated by technology that does not disrupt industry technical standards, but turns a multi-billion dollar tax on domain holders to nothing.

The value of a “.com” name is going to shrink with the introduction of the new sanctioned TLDs in 2013.  The time is right to go further and remove the sanctioning from on high to the free market model.

The PDF file started as an add-on in the 90s, and slowly moved to a de facto standard and then a formal one.  A huge market was built by those who would use the standards to add functionality or provide services.  We can see the same happen with TLDs.  All it will take is a few ISPs to start using ShofarDomain’s DNS technology and the dam will have been breached.  Over time domain holders will become less inclined to pay their annual rental and the market will move to owned domains.  This will be great for the small business and personal domain holder, but less ideal for the bureaucrats.

The Internet is a product of the Wild West mentality of US inventors where autonomy of all players was important.  The TLD arena is one of the last holdouts of centralized control and it is time to say good-bye.