Do you think domains will still be relevant in 20+ years time?

[Lovekraft]

Sorry if this has been asked / discussed before but it has crossed my mind a few times recently. Obviously as technology advances so will the internet and already we are seeing many changes in the way people use it.

A lot of people connect with brands on social media but i don't think that will replace the need for business pages to exist so i don't see this as a real threat to the future of domains. Domain names are basically the backbone of the internet and have been for the last 30 or so years but is there anything on the horizon that could slowly diminish the use of domain names?

Personally i think they will still be in use for the rest of most of our lifetimes but i'm interested to see if anyone thinks otherwise as it's interesting to consider potential replacements.

 

[buzz75]

My opinion i think will go one more than 20-30 year's maybe more..depend now (people on Earth grow and in 30 years will be around 10 -12 billion)
I see a post here about some owner of a coffe shop/pub or something like that and say "Why should i buy a domain name for my business when i have a facbook page"
eh..but facebook control your page and you page is know only at local level.
For a true business or expand you need to have a domain/website.
My fear is actually when Google will became registrar - and knok down all other competitor and also market sale in 3-5 years.
Another competitor will be phone app.
Also think ( even globe population grow and buy more domain's) most value domain remaining : com, net, biz, org, info, name , tv, eu etc..and the new one ( click, xyz, photo etc..) only most important keyword.

 

[accelerator]

I think there will still be a need for them. You need an easy to remember "addressable location" in the form of words to put up information for humans.

There are things that are making them of less value, such as social media pages and mobile apps. However, I think they should still serve a purpose for quite a while. If there is a bit threat, it will probably take most of us by surprise, as new technology can be hard to predict.

 

[Lovekraft]

I do agree social media pages and apps have had some effect on the use of domains but there is only so much you can use an app for, i wouldn't personally really want to use an app for online shopping. I find apps that provide a function like a sound mixer or the spotify app for my phone very useful but these aren't really competing with domain names in that respect.
I think apps will decrease in popularity long before domain names. However i'm still wary, as accelerator says of that "hard to predict" new technology coming along and taking us by surprise!

I think this is something that anyone that invests in / develops sites on domains has to consider.

 

[sdsinc]

I think domain names could last for at least another 30 years.
It's not crazy at all when you think that fundamental protocols like TCP/IP HTTP SMTP etc are 20, 30, even 40 years old... Internet infrastructure is very stable and moves slowly. While HTTP2 is coming around, that still doesn't change a thing about the relevance of domain names.

The concept is simple and brilliant, like phone numbers that have been around for decades.

They are locators on the Internet, even apps need locators.
One thing that could happen is that domain lose their branding value if they become less visible (ie buried/hidden to the user). But I don't really believe in this scenario.

Before the WWW, domains were not valuable because they were not mainstream of course, but the main reason is that they were not advertising material yet.
Back in 1994 I had an E-mail address on my business cards, but I was an oddity

 

[Edwin]

It depends how much you believe in the ideas summed up in this video, I guess...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlCb-1NM8mY

 

[monaghan]

Back in 1994 I had an E-mail address on my business cards, but I was an oddity

I didn't have a business card back then, but being fortunate to be working inside a large telecoms provider, we had Internet connectivity and were using Internet email for many years before anyone outside the telecoms industry and early Internet providers had heard of the Internet. My emails used to cross the Atlantic on a 128K circuit through the mainframe and then cross back again to my local contacts, by 1994 we had a 2Mb/s ring around all the sites in our town with 256Kb/s out to the next group of sites in other towns, now that was fast for the day.

As for domain names, I can't really see any other meaningful way to map to physical computers / devices, most people can't cope with IPv4 let alone IPv6 which is much more complicated to remember. Some form of name to address system will always be needed and domains just work and we all understand them. There will be indexes like Google and a lot will still use things like facebook, but at the end of the day you'll still need something to identify your business (unless we end up with having to build facebook pages, then build Google pages, then build Bing pages and whatever other index systems there are by then.

 

[tifosi]

As for domain names, I can't really see any other meaningful way to map to physical computers / devices, most people can't cope with IPv4 let alone IPv6 which is much more complicated to remember. Some form of name to address system will always be needed and domains just work and we all understand them. There will be indexes like Google and a lot will still use things like facebook, but at the end of the day you'll still need something to identify your business (unless we end up with having to build facebook pages, then build Google pages, then build Bing pages and whatever other index systems there are by then.

Yes, the trend towards socialization of search will still at it's core have the requirement for the basic mapping infrastructure that is the DNS.

Until there is a wholesale replacement for this we'll still have domains. I know many have been scathing about the new gTLD's, but that's when thinking of them in terms of investment opportunities. In the end their use will become far more apparent when ipv4 is fully replaced with ipv6, when global satellite constellations bring real global internet coverage, and pretty much every kind of tech has some kind of localisation and connection capacity.

As for reliance for your business on third party vendors. That's a dangerous fools game.

 

[WalkinDude]

Domains are a permanent location in the virtual electronic network. No different to your permanent residential address or business address in the real world. Both share increasingly similar lifespans. You could for example live at one address for 40 years or 4 years.

Since then social and business networks have come along and they are like your coffee shops or other social and business meeting places. The pub, restaurant etc. Permanent but not something uniquely specific to you.

Then you got hashtags and I always wondered what the disposable domain name would be and it's pretty much the hashtag. Designed to be more or less temporary, no intrinsic value and totally of the moment so bit like staying in a hotel room or something. The Hotel [twitter] provides the room but it's never yours sort of thing.

Now all of these also share similar qualities to a telephone number in that with a mobile you are available for communication wherever you are and also email achieves this.

Now in the real world as we've gone from street address to the invention of 'renting' property to hotel rooms and public meeting places then telephone then mobile and now internet it hasn't exactly as range of these things expanded, led to the demise of the basic 'address'. All that's happened is the basic address has become rather mundane, a part of life's ordinary furniture and about as exciting as a loaf of bread but no less essential.

Value wise, well doesn't need explaining the difference between the value of an address in Mayfair vs the arse end of wherever.

So all in all I personally think the domain name is here to stay and whilst other options may emerge and I'm highly suspicious of the next stage being suffix free domains even that is unlikely given in the real world Baker Street has no meaning without a town or postcode attached to it and that's pretty much the purposes suffixes offer.

But as the internet expands and incumbents find all the good stuff is gone they will just invent new ways to create more good stuff much in the manner no one realistically expects to own a Listed property in say Knightsbridge nowadays but we do expect other opportunities to be created for property continually come to market with inherent potential.

My tenner says the value of top end domains spirals upwards no differently to the value of top end properties have done and associated fashions and fluctuations but general trend is up. Whilst human language expands the top end domains have values that historically took centuries to build up like e.g. Money.com, so even as vocab expands new words got a long way to go before they match that sort of power of common understanding and trust in meaning.

 

[humble pie]

I think we just got to clear through this period of crappy alternative delivery trends e.g. hash tags, apps, facebook.com/mycompany, QR codes (Jesus I can't tell you how much I hate those) and ngtlds of course .
Domains are old hat to the above as they've been around for decades, the junk above is like glitter to newbs who don't understand the Internet and of course its an easy sell for clever marketeers to even thicker, out of date and generally clueless IT managers found within most corporates.

Personally I think we're near to a real clear out phase currently there is not much that hasn't been tried (and failed), maybe 1 year for a (good) domains value to be realized again, to see its potential as the primary delivery method.

 

[Retired_Member42]

I think domains will have their place for the foreseeable future but I think the extension will become less and less important. Primarily due to the increasing ways people promote their business online and how people access their "sites". Not to mention the ever increasing volume in terms of online competition.

In the future I can see lots of different outlets where people have a business presence like we see now with fb.com/company/ or @company on Twitter etc. I envisage lots more accessible via desktop/mobile/tablet using apps or something different entirely. But there should always be a need for a single source for more information which I think is what the "domain" will become. More of a resource to "read more" than a first port of call as it is currently. Another reason why I think the extension will play less of a part in the grand scheme of things and also a reason why I think it's important to secure a uniform brand across all outlets rather than just focusing on a "good domain".

I think the danger for people like us who are used to the domain is not getting on the fb.com/company/ bandwagon and for the new businesses who solely use fb.com/company they'll probably be stuck with this platform too and not bother evolving as other networks become more prominent. I think it's going to be a rolling "stick to what you know" scenario with existing businesses failing to accept change and only a handful evolving as new outlets gain prominence.