Do the roots matter if the rules have never been enforced? .com is flooded, .net and .org haven't meant anything in a couple decades, and many country TLDs are just wordplay that anyone can reg. At least .edu, .gov, and .mil are enforced.

There weren't rules, but there was a hierarchy.

There's still a hierarchy now too.

"putting random shit into the root"

I would change that... to

"putting random shit into the root if you're rich and can afford to buy your own TLD"

There is nothing subversive within the new gTLDs unless you're up to pay for it.

You don't need to be rich, ex. donuts.co, they raised money from rich people.

it's not the root of the hierarchy, it's just up a level. How is .google or .bike or .app any less arbitrary than .com, .net, or .jobs? ICANN picked some arbitrary TLDs a while back, now they've picked some more.

They're called "Top Level Domains", so they are the root. com, net, and org are certainly arbitrary, but they're also predictable.

Soon we'll just have no consistency in domain names.

Agreed. The whole dns system should really be just one way to resolve a name. The ideal would be just .dns (the traditional name) or .icann (the organization managing it, though that is a bit more unweildy). And maybe countries to give governments a space they control, but we can see how well that turned out.

This would leave the rest of the root namespace available for completely different approaches to resolving names. Think decentralized schemes like namecoin, .onion, etc.

I realize it is too late for that, but this is the way we should be thinking about name resolution, imho.

I think of it this way: they didn't create a new infinite set of TLDs, they just created a single new TLD which is the empty string. So what was the point? Is having ".com" or similar at the end such a huge burden?

Sure, now where can I, as a consumer with a reasonable budget, register a domain under this new TLD?

There already are TLDs which have stricter requirements (residency requirements, .edu, .mil etc.) as well as TLDs that were significantly more expansive than others. gTLDs are not that unique in that regard, except for being even more expensive.

.work is cheaper, except for some "premium" words.

I bought shall.work for 2 usd, although I admit I only bought it to use the mail it©shall,work for testing purposes.

I was only trying to make an analogy for the effect on the namespace.

I'm sorry what? Have they actually done this? The TLD in this case is "google", right, not an empty string?

I didn't mean it literally, I guess I should have been more clear. What I mean is that gTLDs are a single new namespace, and provide nothing more than what any other single new TLD would have, except for the aesthetic value of not having ".com" at the end of your domain. I suppose now that I think about it this isn't all that profound.