They get you to upload a file to your root folder and they communicate with it? And you think that’s a better solution? Are you nuts? That screams security risk to me. I know my limits but one thing I know for sure is one should be majorly careful about giving root access. Whether or not the file is malicious or not, other sites COULD be and if people get in the habit of using your method there it could be a huge security vunerability.
Moreover unless I’ve missed my guess maidsafe essentially turns every computer into a server and therefore why not have your own personal DNS address to go with your computer? I mean if you set up a computer you can give it whatever DNS address you like. And to keep it even simpler why not just have our own extention like www.maidsafe.maid or .md or something. As for your popularity idea I’m not sure I follow you. You’d buy the address but if you don’t get enough traffic it gets taken away from you? Also what happens when you have 2 sides that use the same name but vastly different subjects. Say you had a site called “Lords.com” about timelords from Doctor Who. Then Lords.me, a personal site of a family named Lord. And finally you have Lords.org, a religious site devoted to various patheons of gods. Now which site takes priority in your system?