Intriguing that BlueSky is going with a 'URL as ID' approach...
"Custom domain handles are a decentralized way for us to achieve a level of account verification. Curious if '@potus.bsky.social' is actually the president of the US? Once this feature fully lands, you should assume the actual president of the US would have an official domain handle like '@potus.whitehouse.gov'."
https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/3-6-2023-domain-names-as-handles-in-bluesky
'URL as ID' standards have consistently failed to get traction on the web. See the history of OpenID etc. People are used to user@domain.tld style IDs and using a domain is weird for anyone but geeks. I'm not against supporting this in the fediverse (as suggested in FEP: https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fep/src/branch/main/feps/fep-612d.md) but I don't think it's a substitute for WebFinger and the @user@domain.tld addresses folks are used to.
Side note: given the ongoing costs of a personal domain name, most people will never have one.
@strypey
> costs of personal domain name
Maybe subdomains should be public infrastructure? Or 2nd-level domains should be cheaper? Every citizen should have the option of choosing, say, a name.id.nz
I wonder about the details of why subdomains as ID failed. People get used to whatever ID is in circulation. Govt. ID, phone number, e-mail ID, Instagram handle, etc.
@tetrislife
> I wonder about the details of why subdomains as ID failed
I posted about this recently:
https://mastodon.nzoss.nz/@strypey/110500373122488660
... but basically because...
> People get used to whatever ID is in circulation
... and after years of every website wanting an email address to set up an account, they're used to a person@place.foo format for web ID.