The Internet, it is said, provides a utopian alternative, where we all can stand on equal footing to name, define, and possess ourselves.

But on the Internet, self-possession can end at the @.

Hoping to be one of the lucky few netizens who own their own domain, many of us struggle in the Rule of Capture capitalism of the InterNIC economy, yearning to be the explorer who lands on the territory first.

Those who win the race are special enough to be eponymous; the rest tolerate bearing the coat of arms of someone else.

With the power of naming still reserved for the few, the Internet is less an egalitarian utopia and more a class-based hierarchy of possessed and dispossessed after all.

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