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A couple years ago ICANN started letting companies buy customized TLDs through an auction process. I'm not sure how much they paid, but for comparison, Google tried buying .blog a while ago but was outbid by Automattic, who paid $19 million. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11686086

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This is privatization of the web.

It's not. You can make your own DNS server and sell records to anyone you want. You just have to convince users to type in your address instead of 8.8.8.8.

Realistically, how could a project be setup around this?

I mean, how do we get everyday normal people to use it?

Its been attempted before (namecoin etc)...but maybe some advantage could be given to make it more attractive.

The current state of things are OK enough that it's not worth it to normal people to make the switch. If that time ever comes, people will do so.

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