Obligatory disclosure: I currently work at Google but I don't do anything even remotely related to TLDs or the discussion at hand. These comments are my own and don't necessarily reflect the company's views, etc.

I'm going to apply Hanlon's razor here and assume misunderstandings but a lot of this post/rant is exceptionally misleading or even outright incorrect. A full point-by-point response would be more time-consuming than I'd like and more space-consuming than is really appropriate as a comment here. Instead, I've got already-too-long responses to a few of the points and I leave it to the reader to investigate further before cementing any opinions one way or the other.

Nor will I bother you with the other 100 applications for the other 100 TLDs, which are probably similar but I haven’t read all of them because it’s a Friday night and I have plans, so don’t shoot me if it turns out some of them are more evil than others.

At least he admits he hasn't read most of them but it's disingenuous to take a sample of 1 from 101 as representative and even more disingenuous to insinuate that any of the applications deviating from this sample are likely to fall into the "more evil" category.

Actually clicking through even some of the applications listed to "Charleston Road Registry Inc." we see a number of applications--including the ones for .zip [1], .day [2], and .inc [3] among others--proposing SLD registration be publicly available rather than strictly internally. And some of this--like .zip and .day--are proposed to be completely open while others--like .inc--are proposed to be restricted to relevant entities. Other applications--perhaps most notably, .youtube [4]--propose that the public not be able to directly register names but may be able to make use of vanity domains to link to content hosted in that TLD. These applications are also not all active. At least 29--including the mocked .blog--have already been withdrawn.

It’s sort of like how North Korea promotes choice because what if some people want to choose a totalitarian regime.

This is how the rant responds to the quote "Today, most Internet users have only one practical choice when it comes to how their TLDs are managed: a completely unrestricted model environment in which any registrant can register any name for any purpose and use it as they see fit."

It's unfortunate that this quote was taken out of context, however. Reading even just a few sentences further we see the actual meaning of the quote: restricted TLDs such as .edu, .mil, and .gov have proven useful alongside (rather than instead of) the unrestricted TLDs and users (both in the sense of those registering domains and those visiting sites and using services) may benefit from the option of relevant restricted TLDs. For example, the .inc application proposal includes a plan to require registrars to ensure that only corporations are eligible to register .inc domains in much the same way that .edu is only available for accredited US institutions. How much benefit there may be for such restrictions is certainly up for debate it certainly seems a far cry from the "North Korea" comment.

That Google should be allowed to close TLDs because nobody will notice anyway:

This is the rant's ridiculous response to the quote "Because of the strong user bias toward domains within .com, today a generic .com domain name (e.g., jewelry.com or book.com) is likely to produce more traffic and to be more valuable for a business than a generic TLD." out of context, this quote could mean almost anything but in-context it's not about open or closed nor about whether anybody will notice. Rather, it is specifically in regards to the notion owning the .foo TLD would be a significant competitive advantage over owning the foo.com domain or whatever.

"Closed generic TLD". Who even knows what those words mean anyway?

This is perhaps my favourite part of the rant. It mocks the letter for trying to discuss the meaning--or lack thereof--of the term "closed generic" and seems to suggest grabbing a dictionary. Even setting aside that the dictionary doesn't give us appropriately rigorous definitions of these things, the author seems to be missing the fact that this letter didn't spring out of nowhere. In fact, the letter is a comment on an ICANN request for comments on the topic [5] in which ICANN specifically requested comments "in regard to proposed objective criteria for classifying certain applications as 'closed generic' TLDs". If it were anywhere near as simple as grabbing a dictionary ICANN would have done that in the first place and commentary on the difficulty of rigorously and objectively defining the terms was perfectly in line with the requested discussion.

As I said before, these are only a few of the problems with the rant and there are a number of others throughout. You're obviously free to reach your own conclusions but I really hope that you're informed by pretty much any source other than this rant before you do.

[1] https://gtldresult.icann.org/application-result/applications...
[2] https://gtldresult.icann.org/application-result/applications...
[3] https://gtldresult.icann.org/application-result/applications...
[4] https://gtldresult.icann.org/application-result/applications...
[5] https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/closed-generic-2013-02...