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[Start of transcript]Screenshot of a tumblr post
nyancrimew posts:
remember .io games? that was 8 years ago
therealkepler replies:
nowadays the only people that use the .io domain are technology sites
nyancrimew replies:
ok so .io is a "fun" lesson in colonialism and technology, like all two letter top level domains (yes all of them) it's a country domain belonging to a country, io being the british indian oceans territory, an archipelago in the indian ocean. .io domains became so trendy because they're easily marketable to tech people (io can stand for input/output), it looks kinda cool and at the time domains with .io were highly available with not many websites being created on the islands.
however .io is not like other small islands with highly wanted tlds such as .ai or .to, where the islands make millions off of domain sales and can rely on them as a big pillar of their economy. all profits from .io sales go to the UK, and despite a fight to get control over their tld the islands get nothing, not only did the native population get displaced in land deals and colonialism but their colonizer also heavily profits off of the territories sudden (indirect) trendyness with tech startups.
don't buy .io domains, don't support the british empire.
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Fun fact: I used to work as a fraud analyst for aajor telecom company. British Indian Ocean territory islands were extremely high fraud destinations for telecom fraud. I always assumed the people there were basically making ends meet through fraud. (Usually hacking corporate PBX systems and directing phone traffic to premium rate service lines there) But I think it's more likely that the phone companies there aren't so much committing the fraud, but facilitate it with their PRS lines where they surely keep some of the revenue generated.
It's gotta be the companies. Since the British forced out the Indigenous population in the 70s the only permanent inhabitants of the Cagos Islands/BIOT have been US military personnel.