To be more elaborate I guess what I'm saying is that the tld would also need to be its own registrar and DNS service wrapped into one thing. But I feel like this is probably possible to build. Just not certain the external apps would recognize the TLD — does that happen automatically?
nostr:npub1sg6plzptd64u62a878hep2kev88swjh3tw00gjsfl8f237lmu63q0uf63m nostr:npub180cvv07tjdrrgpa0j7j7tmnyl2yr6yr7l8j4s3evf6u64th6gkwsyjh6w6 thinking aloud but is there a way, if we bought and created the .npub tld that we could set up a wildcard domain registrar with some kind of dns redirect so that whenever someone pumped in any random npub string it would show as an http link and open their Nostr client, similar to the way clicking any other link opens a browser? The thought is that this would make it much easier to share npubs, could just drop a ".npub" at the end of the string and then—if this method is possible—the TLD server would handle the rest? What does it take to get apps to recognize TLDs as hyperlinks? Is there a protocol for this or does it have to be added manually by the developers?
Discussion
Asked ChatGPT for edification and it says this:
"Yes, there are TLDs that also operate as domain registrars for their own TLDs. These are known as "Registry-Registrar" models, where the entity that operates the TLD also offers domain registration services directly to customers. This allows them to have more control over the registration process and potentially offer unique features or services.
For example, the ".xyz" TLD operates its own registrar service through a company called "XYZ.COM LLC." Similarly, ".app" is operated by Google and also has its own registrar service.
Keep in mind that the availability of such models can change over time as new TLDs are introduced and existing ones evolve. It's always a good idea to verify the current state of affairs with the specific TLD registry or a domain industry resource."
If the only thing that the .npub TLD registry registrar server did was try to open nostr apps, we could create some sort of request in the protocol that clients could honor. If that's the only thing that the server did — request the clients to open that particular npub, can't see how the system could be abused.