Correct, I also read that the .ml addresses were free, but in hindsight this downtime is a bigger cost to bear than the $10/year or whatever it would cost to properly pay for a domain.
In hindsight, yes. But there was no indiciation ahead of time that this situation would happen or was likely to happen. In fact, there was no more reason to believe a free ccTLD was any more likely than a paid ccTLD to cause a problem. The problem arises because a ccTLD’s host country can choose to remove any domain it wants, paid or not. One could argue that using a ccTLD at all was a mistake, but you’d have to look at precedent for ccTLD’s country’s doing this and see if it happens often or not.
That’s not entirely true. .ml domains we’re being given away for free.
Correct, I also read that the .ml addresses were free, but in hindsight this downtime is a bigger cost to bear than the $10/year or whatever it would cost to properly pay for a domain.
In hindsight, yes. But there was no indiciation ahead of time that this situation would happen or was likely to happen. In fact, there was no more reason to believe a free ccTLD was any more likely than a paid ccTLD to cause a problem. The problem arises because a ccTLD’s host country can choose to remove any domain it wants, paid or not. One could argue that using a ccTLD at all was a mistake, but you’d have to look at precedent for ccTLD’s country’s doing this and see if it happens often or not.