Another thing that should be obvious and yet they refuse to do: when there is a single third-level customer for a given second-level, offer them a way to get the second level domain. I've been asking VeriSign this for 15+ years, they always said no, even if at some point they confirmed that there were no other third-level than mine under that second-level domain. They're insane and should not be in charge.
> They're insane and should not be in charge.
I remember back when we had to write mechanize scripts to drive a browser through the renewal process, because if you had dozens, hundreds, or thousands of domains there was no nonmanual way, especially if you wanted extended verification or something silly like that.
So what I'm saying is, agreed and that has always been true.
Why would they want to drop the possibility of selling some as premium domains? If they have their shells setup right they will probably be able to get a premium from some 3rd level domain owners wrongly afraid someone else is interested.
The main problem with the Internet today is that we didn't destroy ICANN when they started this TLD sell off crap. A replacement institution may have at least told Verisign a TLD they can't run transfer to someone who can meet its promises can only be destroyed.
The .name predates the TLD well-off crap. The first huge bulk of new TLDs happened in 2014, .name dates back from 2001. Also, .name filled an actual need for general non ccTLD: companies had .com, organizations had .org, Internet related stuff had .net, there was .gov, .edu, .mil, and ccTLDs, but nothing made for individuals. It filled this use case, it actually made sense.
Because it's not worth it financially. After icann is the tld registrar, and after that above. So, if anyone is destroying it, it's not the registrar, it's the tld.