I get that some instances use the domain + TLD to make a word, like lemm.ee or to an extent, sh.itjust.works. But I’ve seen so many TLDs I had no idea existed, like .world, .zone, .social, and yes .works as well.

Is there any real reason for that? Trying to look cool or kinda underground-y? Cheaper and more varied domain options? Something actually kinda functional?

Interestingly, I started on vlemmy.net because I was a scared Reddit refugee and the .net TLD gave me comfort. Then it vanished a few days later without a trace. So here I am on lemmy.world

  • InfiniWheel@lemmy.one
    13·
    1 year ago

    “Weird” TLDs tend to be cheaper. .social is also supposed to be made for this in the first place

  • 1984@lemmy.today
    91·
    1 year ago

    The real reason is because it’s expensive to get a short and good .com name and also because it’s very corporate and boring.

      • HakFoo@lemmy.sdf.org
        3·
        1 year ago

        There is an entire industry “domaining” that trades domain names like baseball cards. It usually boils down to two things:

        • People register pdrq.com because they hope someone will have a wonderful new product named PDRQ later and will pay $10,000 for a domain that cost them $11.

        • Even if there’s no direct buyer, there are services that will run low-quality ads on the page. and you can more or less estimate traffic and revenue from typos or dead links pointing to the domain. A three character domain, all letters, will get more than 12 characters with random digits mixed in. If you get $12 a year of random clicks seeing ads for “hot singles in your area offering PDRQ”, you’re ahead and can justify holding it as part of a portfolio.

        • loobkoob@kbin.social
          2·
          1 year ago

          Which really illustrates how much of a bubble waiting to burst online advertising is. Ads on pages like those don’t translate into any real-world value for anyone. The advertisers are paying out but they’re not actually gaining any sales/users for their money at all because no-one is mistyping a website name, then clicking an advert on the crappy-looking page that comes up, and then deciding to buy/use a product/service from that advert.

          • ___@lemmy.ca
            3·
            1 year ago

            Based on my discussions with some domainers I’ve met, the ads themselves haven’t been profitable for the past 5+ years. Their renewals are done at a loss until they make a sale, which covers a few year’s worth of renewals on all their domains. It’s not as profitable as it used to be with all the new gTLDs out there

  • rar@discuss.online
    3·
    1 year ago

    New gTLDs have been released constantly since ICANN dropped the restriction. Also consider that a lot of Lemmy instances are run by individuals as a side project. That means they’ll reuse or nab whatever cool sounding domain they can get to spin up their new instance as quickly as possible. Corporate websites might pause and consider a more “marketable” domain.

    Personal theory of mine is *.itjust.works meant to stand for “It Just Works” until they decided to give this Lemmy thing a go.

    • Taival@suppo.fi
      2·
      1 year ago

      Personal theory of mine is *.itjust.works meant to stand for “It Just Works” until they decided to give this Lemmy thing a go.

      Yep it’s referencing a meme that originated almost a decade ago. https://youtu.be/nVqcxarP9J4

  • moreeni@lemm.ee
    3·
    1 year ago

    They look better and more quirky than the “usual” ones. Also, sometimes they might be even cheaper