Originally Posted by
Rubber Duck 
The reason that most people do not get why IDNs will come to take their place alongside English Dot Coms is that they don't really understand why English Dot Coms work. Once they come to understand that English Dot Coms are just a special case of wider domaining format they will be better domainers. Unfortunately, but inevitably most will be too late to make any serious money.
The Domain Space was invented because of the problems that humans have accurately recognising and recalling 12 digit numerical sequences. This would have been even more of a problem now we are shifting to 18 digit numerical sequences. Just imagine the opportunities a phisher would have if we all relied on such addresses. Of course, we still do but the whole concept of domains is that they are easily recognisable aliases, that can be recognised and recalled by humans. Of course, just as with the IP addresses, the concept of each being unique is fundamental.
Due to technological limitations of the era, the character set for Domain Name System (DNS) was limited to the 26 characters of the Latin Alphabet, the hyphen and the digits 0 to 9. This was acceptable because the Internet was conceived by English Speakers for English Speakers. Of course the picture has changed a great deal since then and already the number of English Speaker users is set to drop below 20% of the total. Eventually, it will be far less than 10%.
Domain names right from the start have had two parts. The keyword and the extension. The extension was required from the outset as it was obvious to anyone with half a brain that there was a limit to the number of truely useful memorable terms. Terms that are more difficult to recall than 12 digit sequences they represent are inherently useless, but this fact seems to have been overlooked by a large number of Dot Com enthuisiasts. The extension, however, allows all the useful popular terms to be replicated over and over again, thereby providing an adequate domain space for the entire globe. It also allows domain to be segmented by category and geography, which is useful for search, and other applications. The keyword is of course the bit that has to be designed for instant recall. The extension are by their very nature brands, and of course some are stronger brands than others.
The system has been designed to be as effective and simple as possible for the problem as it was orginally envisaged. The problem arises, however, when you have communites that require internet access that are unfamilar with the Latin Alphabetic characters. Most, however, will be familar with the numerical digits. It is virtually impossible, however, for speakers of other languages to create domain registries of domains that meet the "recognise and recall" criteria for more than a comparatively small number of names. The Chinese quickly recognised that short numerical sequences were very memorable to Chinese people but Pinyin was virtually useless to them. Obviously the scope for creating short numerical sequences is limited. They have also rather less satisfactorily adopted Acroynms.
It soon becomes clear to anyone capable of objective analysis that the "recognise and recall" criteria can only be achieved for usefully large numbers of domains for various language groups, particularly in Asia, by allow them to register domains in the language characters that they use to write their own languages. English people would be horrified if they were expected to represent their names in Arabic or Cyrillic Scripts. Why they have the temerity to imagine that others should feel differently when the problem is presented the other way around is impossible for most people to understand. This is, however, a position taken by many that consider themselves experts in the field. The bottom line, however, is that many are just those that follow markets. The herd mentallity is common to 90% of those that participate in any market. It is in part because they many are not long-term investors and are therefore only interested in short-term trends. It is also because most are not capable of useful fundamental analysis. They are good a following curves but incapable of predicting what lies beyond the cusp.
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