Vadim asks:
Why not to restrict first-level domains to companies which can demonstrate that they have 1000+ hosts?
Creating a problem to solve a problem is not a solution. Paul already said that a 16MB 486 can handle root DNS just fine. This does not bespeak of a problem requiring "renumbering" hundreds of thousands of domains. FURTHER, your "big win" is only a 1/26 lessening of load. If the problem is such that 1/26 is a "big win" I think it's not big enough to rename the Internet for. ...
What we should worry about is number of first-level domains/number of hosts ratio. It is the same problem as with routing. The solution is also the same --
No, it's not the same problem as routing. All routers with non-default rules need to know about all routes. The only possible analogy for that in DNS is root nameservers. These (as Paul pointed out in a previous post, since he runs F) are not saturated, and don't require that many resources. If you feel the growth of domain names is such that it will outstrip a 486 w/16MB soon, tell me when it will be a SIGNIFICANT problem. I.e. when will it outstrip a real machine (Sun, VAX, Alpha, SGI) with real memory (64MB? 128MB? 4G?) Remember, upgrading HUNDREDS of routers all running 45Mbps is a priority. Upgrading 8 boxes running BIND and doing it well is a much much much lower priority.
mnemonic can be used to distinguish between thousands of nearly identical small businesses?)
--vadim
PS. Obviously if IBM registers 100 domain names it is still a lot less damage than a small ISP (with 1000 dial-up customers) which registers a domain name for every such customer. Big folks registering POISONOUS-BURGER.COM and SHIT-ON-TV.COM aren't really a problem. Zillion of MOM-AND-POP.COMs is.
Ehud