Reading some of this discussion leaves me puzzled because I can't tell
which things that some people are saying are intended to be about
"dotless" use of domains, or are intended to be about the expansion of
top level domains in general.
Yes, they should be trreated as entirely separate topics.
My own comments are only about the technical and operational assessment
of using dotless domains; I'm not commenting on any policy or political
issues:
Dotless domain names have roughly 30 years of standards, software
and operations practice working against them. They have always been
treated either as an error or as a short-form to possible alternatives.
Moving an extremely well-established installed base of perhaps
hundreds of independent software implementations, thousands of different
independent operational environments, and billions of users from
treating dotless names one way to another should be seen as an
impossible task.
d/
--
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net