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Ask HN: Do you have an aversion to recent TLDs?

21 points GaryBluto | 2 comments | 01 Nov 25 06:53 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source

I noticed recently that I tend to subconsciously avoid websites visiting websites using more recent TLDs, like .space, .app, etc.

After some introspection I realized that they feel dodgy and "fake" to me. I was wondering if this was a personal eccentricity or something other people experience.

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anonymous908213 ◴[01 Nov 25 07:52 UTC] No.45779932[source]▶
Not at all. It's irrational to judge how legitimate something is by its ability to get a slice of a finite namespace. That heuristic may have been slightly useful 30 years ago, but since then internet usage has exploded and the desirable .coms have generally all been nabbed already.
replies(1): >>45780106 #
4ndrewl ◴[01 Nov 25 08:33 UTC] No.45780106[source]▶
Doesn't that lead to the opposite conclusion? I'm much more likely to believe nike.com is genuine compared to nike.sportsgear
replies(1): >>45780338 #
1. anonymous908213 ◴[01 Nov 25 09:26 UTC] No.45780338[source]▶
I would trust ".com" or ".sportsgear" equally, which is to say, I put zero trust into the domain name because it's not a useful heuristic. For 30+ year old businesses that had a better opportunity to secure their .com, maybe the heuristic could be helpful, but it could be actively harmful for anything newer which had its .com squatted. Will you give your credit card info to any .com on the basis of .com being trustworthy? Or would you rather consider using the abundant information available on the internet to more reliably identify the trustworthiness of a site?
replies(1): >>45780479 #
2. 4ndrewl ◴[01 Nov 25 09:59 UTC] No.45780479[source]▶
> Will you give your credit card info to any .com on the basis of .com being trustworthy

Of course not, and that's why I didn't say that. I said I'm more _likely_ to trust nike.com, and would give more scrutiny to nike.randomtld.