I can't really comment on the rest of it, for obvious reasons, but this part is not accurate:
> And de is as much a ccTLD as .io – it’s not really the actual case anymore.
.de is clearly still the ccTLD for Germany. It's not at all like the situation of .io, which is run by a British company as, effectively, a two-letter generic TLD that has nothing to do with the actual Indian Ocean territories. .de clearly has a lot to do with Germany, including being widely used there (but not anywhere else), and also being run by denic, a German company headquartered in Frankfurt. I was just in Frankfurt last week talking with a bunch of denic people, actually. They absolutely do consider it a country code TLD, proudly and unapologetically.
> And de is as much a ccTLD as .io – it’s not really the actual case anymore.
.de is clearly still the ccTLD for Germany. It's not at all like the situation of .io, which is run by a British company as, effectively, a two-letter generic TLD that has nothing to do with the actual Indian Ocean territories. .de clearly has a lot to do with Germany, including being widely used there (but not anywhere else), and also being run by denic, a German company headquartered in Frankfurt. I was just in Frankfurt last week talking with a bunch of denic people, actually. They absolutely do consider it a country code TLD, proudly and unapologetically.