Once you stop thinking of domain as an addressing tool and start thinking of them as branding, the complaints will make sense. "Dot k12 dot oh dot us" is a terrible brand name.

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EvanAnderson 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I have a hard time with public dollars going to "branding" but I do recognize it's a concern for some people and I'm a vastly minority opinion.

	▲	Atotalnoob 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Public dollars or not, it IS branding. Having a strong, consistent, easy to use name IS a positive. It’s easy to remember, which means more “engagement”. For a local government organization, that means more support, more feedback, and the constituents are “getting their moneys worth” more than a government organization that they can’t ever interact with. It’s a clear win for using your dollars BETTER
	▲	Xirdus 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Everything needs branding. "United States of America" and "USA" is branding. Good branding makes people's lives easier and (on average) a tiny bit happier. That has some impact on quality of life. Spending a few tax dollars on improving people's QOL is a good thing if you ask me. As a specific example, imagine how many less people would enroll in Medicare if instead it was called Lifelong Assistance in Meeting Medical Needs of Aging Able-Bodied Population. Just finding eligibility criteria and the correct forms to submit would be 10 times harder. (I think it would be even better if Medicare and Medicaid weren't so similar and easy to confuse with one another. Recently I had to explain both concepts to an immigrant who knew about neither but found contradictory information online about both.)