What you're imagining the function of the hypothetical "asn.net" to be, was just the intended function of the "net" TLD as a whole: it was a namespace for registering computer networks under, to give those networks' devices authoritative FQDNs in PTR records, and to give services like WHOIS something to point to to talk about "the operator of network X."
This intention included distinct Autonomous Systems, yes; but also ISP networks (which usually exist across many ASes to do their work).
Even today, if you do a PTR lookup on your own residential IP address, it probably resolves to a .net-suffixed FQDN.
I'm not sure when exactly Verisign (registrar operator of the .net TLD for its entire lifetime so far) went off the rails and began allowing usages outside the scope of "the management of computer networks." Almost certainly wasn't until a few years after the birth of the web (when everything having a marketable domain name became hip.) .net was definitely viewed as a "special" TLD, with special registration requirements, for a good long while — up through to at least the '90s, and possibly into the early '00s.
Honestly, I think it might just be a scalability-of-verification issue. Verisign might be able to check that every registrant in the US is a network operator (as was effectively all they had to do in the '80s); but every registrant in the entire world? A bit much to ask.
Which leads me to my current belief about why the network rules of .net as a TLD are currently the way they are: it's the least-work option for Verisign to keep the TLD going for its intended purpose. Rather than needing to individually verify every zone as a network, per the current rules, Verisign only needs to step in if a problem arises, or if there's a dispute between usages.
When such a thing happens, Verisign then does the "verification as being used for the operation of a computer network" step it theoretically should have been doing anyway; and if the domain fails the verification, Verisign takes it away.
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That's for the DNS homing part. What about the "having an abuse website to complain to" part?
Well, in practice, AS network operators just don't care all that much about Internet principles of self-hosting, federation, public goods, etc. where their human-readable information is concerned.
Because of this, most ASes who own AS\d+\.NET zones don't actually maintain websites on them; and in fact don't maintain public websites anywhere. Instead — just like individuals hooked on Facebook — they rely on updating their human-readable metadata in public databases owned by private companies.
It just feels crap that if I register as123125125.net then it might be taken off me just because a bunch of network operators can't be bothered to use the DNS properly.
You're quite right about the original intended purpose of .net, but even so if someone wants as125125.net they should register it properly not just be able to phone their mates at Verisign and get it taken away from someone who has paid for it.
This intention included distinct Autonomous Systems, yes; but also ISP networks (which usually exist across many ASes to do their work).
Even today, if you do a PTR lookup on your own residential IP address, it probably resolves to a .net-suffixed FQDN.
I'm not sure when exactly Verisign (registrar operator of the .net TLD for its entire lifetime so far) went off the rails and began allowing usages outside the scope of "the management of computer networks." Almost certainly wasn't until a few years after the birth of the web (when everything having a marketable domain name became hip.) .net was definitely viewed as a "special" TLD, with special registration requirements, for a good long while — up through to at least the '90s, and possibly into the early '00s.
Honestly, I think it might just be a scalability-of-verification issue. Verisign might be able to check that every registrant in the US is a network operator (as was effectively all they had to do in the '80s); but every registrant in the entire world? A bit much to ask.
Which leads me to my current belief about why the network rules of .net as a TLD are currently the way they are: it's the least-work option for Verisign to keep the TLD going for its intended purpose. Rather than needing to individually verify every zone as a network, per the current rules, Verisign only needs to step in if a problem arises, or if there's a dispute between usages.
When such a thing happens, Verisign then does the "verification as being used for the operation of a computer network" step it theoretically should have been doing anyway; and if the domain fails the verification, Verisign takes it away.
---
That's for the DNS homing part. What about the "having an abuse website to complain to" part?
Well, in practice, AS network operators just don't care all that much about Internet principles of self-hosting, federation, public goods, etc. where their human-readable information is concerned.
Because of this, most ASes who own AS\d+\.NET zones don't actually maintain websites on them; and in fact don't maintain public websites anywhere. Instead — just like individuals hooked on Facebook — they rely on updating their human-readable metadata in public databases owned by private companies.
For every website like http://as9009.net/, there are ten ASes that would just tell you to go look at https://www.peeringdb.com/asn/9009.