..So what's this no brainier your talking bout?
The answer has been obvious from the start. Kate already touched upon it in
post #7 before I even entered this thread, and I have written about it before. Incidentally, how old were you when .us was released in April 2002?
Bold added below:
It's unlikely that a ccTLD (any ccTLD) is going to thrive when it's not being embraced by national authorities. The official bodies lead the way and the rest of the country follows. Not happening in the US.
The answer to this is the same fundamental answer that covers many different basic areas of life when it comes to popularity, discovery and awareness, and desire; from the playground of your childhood, to people you like and associate with, to the brands of goods that fill your home, and so on.
Things happen from the top down, and all it takes quantitatively is virtually nothing at all when the right or necessary qualitative action or gesture is taken. And in the case of .US, from the beginning it would have taken virtually nothing at all to this very day and even now.
I'll put it in a list for the sake of simplicity and clarity. This is all it would have taken and all that it would take now for the world to be completely different re public awareness and popularity of .US:
1. The people in authority at the top levels of government in the US finally declare to the country the following, in one form or another:
A. .US exists.
B. .US is good.
C. .US is, it goes without saying, patriotic - the most patriotic thing there could possibly even be re the Internet for a citizen of this country.
D. We like .US.
E. We want you to know about and like .US.
F. We want you as the American people to value and make use of .US.
G. In the process of the above, we want you as the American people to become more knowledgeable and educated about what domain names even are, how they work, why they are so valuable to the health and strength of the US and its economy, and to make good use of them for good purposes in your life and the nation as you will. The result of such increased awareness could and would likely be nothing but beneficial to our nation and society.
2. There is saying with your mouth, and there is saying with your actions. Ergo, in communicating and bringing about the above in both word and deed, the people in authority could have all this time and could even now simply use .US in highly visible ways, such as:
A. Political candidates begin using .US instead of .com or .org.
B. Government officials begin making use of .US instead of .com, .org, and in some cases instead of .gov as well.
C. One of the most psychologically impacting actions of all, if not the most, and one I have mentioned before: the US military no longer uses ".com" in its marketing, most particularly and especially in its television marketing. Instead, it uses the most patriotic Internet phenomenon there is re the USA, .US. So when those engaging TV commercials captivate your mind and your attention, which they do, the great and patriotic last thing you see is not Army.com, Navy.com, Airforce.com, Marines.com, etc. The last thing you see is Army.us, Navy.us, Airforce.us, Marines.us. That makes a statement and a psychological impact about the Internet and the World Wide Web bigger than the Grand Canyon, just as the presence of .com in those commercials all these years makes the same kind of statement in the other direction. And in the short term, if it looks like the need is apparent while the American public is still becoming aware that its own country code .US even exists at all, then you can even include the "www." until there is confidence the American public already knows enough because of the other actions and gestures to do without it, just as occurred with .com.
And no doubt so much more which others can think of that quantitatively speaking would take very little in terms of actual effort and expense, and in some cases would merely consist of swapping out .com, .org or .gov for .us.
But as long as the people in such positions in the great US have not done these things and will not do these things, then .US is where it is.
All of this is so obvious and always has been. So the question really is, why has none of this ever been done for all intents and purposes? One could speculate. In the meantime, it would be so simple and always has.
Think back to when .US was even finally released for general public use, by the way, April 2002. Just think about it for even one moment. At that time, the country was undergoing the greatest renaissance and explosion of renewed and fervent patriotism that we have probably ever seen in our lives, the only exception almost certainly being only those who lived through World War II itself, and which perhaps we ever will see in our lives, because of something which had occurred in our country literally only months before. And yet, when .us was released at that time, it was quietly released under a rock, and kept under a rock ever since, where it stayed. For all intents and purposes only those "in the know," in the know about domain names themselves, knew anything about it or even cared when it appeared that way. It doesn't get any more ironic than that.
Doing these things, finally doing what it takes to not only get the people in the US to even know that .US exists at all and finally spark the kind of popularity and desire that could only benefit the USA in so many ways, would be simpler and easier than even reading what I just wrote above. And that is what people do in one form or another whether figuratively or literally when they want to for virtually every other area of life.
