question about TLDs
Why can't I just make up my own? Why does there have to be an official list?
question about TLDs
@lizardsquid you can! But you have to get ICANN to approve it and that is extraordinarily expensive.
maple classic™ 
question about TLDs
@Felthry @lizardsquid alt.swedish.chef.bork.bork.bork
question about TLDs
@lizardsquid The original tlds were .net (intended to be the most common and basic one), .com (intended for commercial sites only), .org, .gov, .edu, .arpa (for holdovers from ARPAnet, now only used for one site), and possibly one or two more that I forget. At some point they added ccTLDs for each country, then .info was added at some point, then .mobi, neither of which were much used. then a couple years ago they decided to let people make their own.
question about TLDs
@lizardsquid this is all from memory mind you so might not be 100% accurate, particularly in which tlds were original and which were added later, and in what order
question about TLDs
@Felthry I do wish .net was more popular, it's a nice one
question about TLDs
@Felthry @lizardsquid IIRC, the official paperwork cost is under $200k: out of budget for real people but cheaper than you think. I don't think that counts infrastructure costs, though.
question about TLDs
@lizardsquid More seriously, it's a bit of a holdover from the early days of the internet. Actually, I've heard the TLD was originally meant to come first--'www' was intended to be the first top-level domain, with subdomains separated by dots. That didn't end up working that way, though, and actual usage differed enough that when it was standardized, they got what we have now in terms of domain levels