I think you're looking for a problem where there is none. The only case for a "problem in the distribution of domains" would be your "local shops that can't grab their names".
The DNS is a very well thought system, I think it's one of my favorite protocols. ICANN (or any sub-agancy of it) can just decide to take some domains to make the names more "granular". A first approach I thought of in just a few seconds is, with the US as an example, taking over "state code".(com|org|net|...) and only delegate those to small business operating within one state. You get a lot of "domains" for free.
For me it was like reading: "Writing is not a basic skill; we have plenty of books out there. Most people, when they learn to write, start writing books that are of awful quality!"
This is very, very interesting. I'd like to point out that the situation is very similar to Asimov's Foundation. In the novel, the Encyclopedists where arguing whether they should stick to their scholar work on the Galactic Encyclopedia or become a very strong force in the history of mankind.
I don't understand all this hatred against web2py. For some months I've been working on it and I didn't found it any harder, slower, nor unsafer than other frameworks. Can somebody please finally give me reasons not to use them? Instead of a simple "Don't use it. You'll have major headaches in the future", like in http://us.pycon.org/2011/schedule/presentations/152/
The biggest problem is that web2py openly encourages learning practices which do not transfer over into general Python programming and, in fact, are the literal opposite of how actual Python programmers work. Things like magic imports seem great at first, of course, but in the long run A) get you lost quickly if you ever have to write real Python and B) have the same problem any bit of hidden magic does: sooner or later something's going to go wrong and you're going to have one hell of a time figuring out which bit of implicit "helpful" code is causing it.
It's like running with the scissors. I'm not sure if anyone ever hurt themselves that exact way, but any grown up person knows it's a bad idea and you should not try it (or a similar action). If the general idea can be explained and makes sense, do you really want to look for specific examples where doing the opposite failed?
You could probably check the number of questions about php's autoloader on stackoverflow to get an idea why magic is not good.
In the first Indie Bundle [http://www.wolfire.com/humble], they didn't show these results until the last days, and the stats were similar. Linux Users weren't trying to show off, it was something that just happened.
Means are still spectacularly unstable to small numbers of outliers. They're more stable with higher numbers of samples, but so is any given measure of centrality.
So, a few Linux users donating $500 could sway an identical distribution to the Mac or Windows users.
I don't think the $5 makes a huge difference: and this way, the designer has more chance that people will allow him to post the design into his portfolio.
I'm pretty sure he is not doing it for the money, but rather to get some experience and build up his portfolio.
Yes, it does. On the other edge case, with really large amounts of money, the perceived value of a differences might be hard to grasp. It's hard to see a penny as worth anything, and it's also hard to really grasp the difference in value between a trillion dollars and 1.1 trillion dollars.
Since 5 dollars is a denomination of US bills I think it has a significant psychological weight to considering it's value (for anyone familiar with US currency). You think of $5 and you know what it is,what it's worth to you, what you'd spend it on.
This might be a hold over from handling cash, where that $5 spent on a service might be competing with your lunch or bus ticket. I suppose dealing increasingly with debit/credit cards in place of small cash transactions where it's "just $5 in your entire bank account" will likely lessen this effect.
That's right. Have you seen Copenhagen (a movie produced for TV)? It shows Niels Bohr arguing with Heisenberg about the atomic bomb... it's a really good movie about a meeting between them that nobody knows what was it about.
The DNS is a very well thought system, I think it's one of my favorite protocols. ICANN (or any sub-agancy of it) can just decide to take some domains to make the names more "granular". A first approach I thought of in just a few seconds is, with the US as an example, taking over "state code".(com|org|net|...) and only delegate those to small business operating within one state. You get a lot of "domains" for free.