Despite its global rankings in the world’s economy, Tuvalu is unique: it makes 10% of its annual national earnings, by leasing out the rights to dot .TV domains.
Making revenue by allowing their .tv country code to be used for the world's media and TV websites is a far superior method than that used by Nauru - one of Tuvalu's neighbouring Pacific island nations.
Nauru made literally hundreds of millions of dollars in the Sixties and Seventies by selling guano - which is basically the excrement of seabirds. The guano was eventually all removed (it was used for feriliser) and now the country is broke - relying on Australia to give it money for letting it house an immigrant detention centre.
So, yet another reason to gain pleasure from your purchase of a .tv name
The people of Tuvalu can enjoy their Pacific paradise and, literally, keep their own shit.
That's got to be good.
The United Nations designates Tuvalu as a least developed country (LDC) because of its limited potential for economic development, absence of exploitable resources and its small size and vulnerability to external economic and environmental shocks.
The thing is that Tuvalu wants to deffer graduating out of LDC because they dont want to lose funding assistance from other countries.
Tuvalu biggest money maker is about 10 mil a year for tuna rights.
I agree it does seem quite a small amount, but this needs to be put into perspective. The population of the country is not even 11,000, which is about half of the people who work in the pentagon building on a normal week day.
So that $2-3 million a year can go a very long way - like paying for the whole of the free education system for all 6 to 15 year olds in the country.
And, of course, the money is completely free, and still allows for the registrar (Verisign) to make sufficient profit themselves from .tv names.