The end of .com ? Yes ? No ?

[dominator]

usa is not the whole world

for example
the value of .com's in germany is usually only about 10% or less of .de's
and it is similar in other countries

new extensions would mean more chaos and confusion

[radioz]

I strongly question the original idea here. It will be very confusing to internet users. On the other hand, .COM is king followed by, if you absolutely must, .NET. .ORG for some organization purposes is sought out as are some country codes on a regional basis only. .TV and .MOBI also have some relevance and niche uses but how many big companies (or any real companies, for that matter) have you seen using .MOBI. Both on a national and, in my area, at least, local level, what's used is CompanyName.COM/mobile.

People want .COM as their extension. They often will pay a premium price for, or at least register pretty crummy to downright awful .COM names even when, say, an arguably much better and descriptive one or two word new extension or country code is available. Sometimes the .NET that they SHOULD use is even available.

While I think that endorsing this move would be a bad idea, I have found over time that governmental and law making groups such as ICANN are full of bad ideas and they implement many of them. This move wouldn't kill the original 3 extensions or the very strong country codes but it would probably murder everything else. You might just get those 'hot' .ME names that you've been lusting for without much of an auction! Someone is lusting for them; right??!

[intellect]

From their Site:
To reach another person on the Internet you have to type an address into your computer - a name or a number. That address has to be unique so computers know where to find each other. ICANN coordinates these unique identifiers across the world. Without that coordination we wouldn't have one global Internet.

ICANN was formed in 1998. It is a not-for-profit partnership of people from all over the world dedicated to keeping the Internet secure, stable and interoperable. It promotes competition and develops policy on the Internet’s unique identifiers.

ICANN doesn’t control content on the Internet. It cannot stop spam and it doesn’t deal with access to the Internet. But through its coordination role of the Internet’s naming system, it does have an important impact on the expansion and evolution of the Internet.

Not for Profit? Riiiight.