.io is a particularly sad story. The residents of the British Indian Ocean Territory (which .io represents) were forced to leave the islands in the 1960s to make room for a naval base. The UK has subsequently established the islands as a marine reserve with the express intent of preventing the original inhabitants, or their descendants, from ever returning to the islands.

It's likely horribly polluted at this point (the base there is actually a US one as the UK leases it to the US) so if anyone ever does get to go live there is will be pretty horrible. Quite a reprehensible example of colonialism.

And the British base is essentially a wrapper around a US Air Force Base.

Main island and site of the USAF base is Diego Garcia, sometimes used to refer to the BIOT as a whole.

It wasn't until the Second Civil War in 2014 that all the cool internet kids realized bit.ly and others were financially subsidizing the Libyan government and that a likely change of government could make their startup disappear overnight.

“Financially subsidising” to the tune of a few hundred dollars a year? For a petro state that earned billions in revenue from oil and gas?

There’s no need for the subtle condescension here - “cool internet kids”.

From 2011 to 2020 anyone with a .ly domain was doing so in violation of federal law per Executive Order 13566: "...the Government of Libya, its agencies, instrumentalities, and controlled entities, and the Central Bank of Libya, [...] may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in pursuant to the order."