Never mind all these arguments about whether someone can actually manage to have a world-wide domain. If we restrict our sphere of influence to within the US only, it's still easy to understand the popularity of.com: Unlike.us,.com is completely non-regional. The.us TLD is "locality-based": With a few official exceptions, a.us domain deliberately encodes the geographical location of its owner. (See http://www.nic.us/overview.html for details.) If I register a domain under.us, I'm tying the domain (and my email addresses, web site, etc.) to a physical geographical location.
This is silly. The Internet's geography is not required to be congruent with real-life geography; in fact, it often is not. The.uk TLD doesn't work this way; it's possible to get a geographically-neutral domain name within the.uk name space. Ditto for.au.
From a purely practical standpoint, if there's even a remote possibility that I might move--say, from northern NJ to Manhattan--why would I want a domain that encodes my location? If I'm living in Manhattan, I'm probably going to feel a little silly getting my email via mydomain.hoboken.nj.us. By contrast, if I get a.com domain, the domain name doesn't become instantly silly if I change my physical location, because the name itself doesn't reflect my physical location in the first place.
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Never mind all these arguments about whether someone can actually manage to have a world-wide domain. If we restrict our sphere of influence to within the US only, it's still easy to understand the popularity of .com: Unlike .us, .com is completely non-regional. The .us TLD is "locality-based": With a few official exceptions, a .us domain deliberately encodes the geographical location of its owner. (See http://www.nic.us/overview.html for details.) If I register a domain under .us, I'm tying the domain (and my email addresses, web site, etc.) to a physical geographical location.
This is silly. The Internet's geography is not required to be congruent with real-life geography; in fact, it often is not. The .uk TLD doesn't work this way; it's possible to get a geographically-neutral domain name within the .uk name space. Ditto for .au.
From a purely practical standpoint, if there's even a remote possibility that I might move--say, from northern NJ to Manhattan--why would I want a domain that encodes my location? If I'm living in Manhattan, I'm probably going to feel a little silly getting my email via mydomain.hoboken.nj.us. By contrast, if I get a .com domain, the domain name doesn't become instantly silly if I change my physical location, because the name itself doesn't reflect my physical location in the first place.
Hmmm... I think I'll wait 'til the first or second dot release.