Good.
TLDR: no
Interesting to see how no one bothered to read the article.
I did read the article. The answer is inconclusive not an definitive no.
According to all the rules it should stop existing, taking common sense into account it’ll carry on. Thing is it remains to be seen where the common sense will be taken into account. Common sense isn’t all that common.
The article said companies profit from it, so their prediction is no. It’s just an opinion, and not supported by any legal or diplomatic action in the article.
My opinion is it should cease to exist. Two letter domains are country codes and IANA policy is it should match a list maintained by the UN. IANA has no business deciding for itself and has said it doesn’t want to, and they’re opening themselves to all sorts of liability and complications should they stray from that. If the UN no longer says its a valid country, it needs to no longer be a country code domain, and that’s too bad for any companies speculating on its future
Why not just let people have whatever suffix they want?
They do, that’s why this is an issue in the first place. The purpose of ccTLDs is to host domains associated with a particular country. If the country stops existing, there’s no reason to use that country’s ccTLD. The problem is they let anyone register domains under this ccTLD even if they have no association with that country, hence the situation we’re in.
Actually I believe you had to be a British national to register. Well at least you’re supposed to be a British national I’m not sure how much they checked.
Some amount of organization is a good thing for many reasons. Think of an analogy to roads where basic traffic rules allow everyone the freedom to travel wherever and however but subject to the rules of locales. Feel free to pick your own domain within any generally recognized top level domain, according to the rules established by that tld.
In particular, two character top level domains are reserved for ownership by specific countries. They get to say who can have a presence there, under what standards, and they deserve any profit made from that. This was a way of giving everyone a voice, to expand it beyond the us, to give many interests their own home
