There is talk of preventing account name squatting which implies that certain EOS account names may be more valuable than others. On a platform like Steem, it makes sense because account names are like social media handles. But on EOS the value is not clear to me.
In what ways will EOS account names be valuable?
The EOS account names can easily be used like the Steem ones as well as every other dApp deployed on the main net. Think of it as a global twitter handle across all dApps.
Rather than quote a public key when your friend want's to reimburse you for pizza night you can just give him your account name. He can then look up your high score on Space Invaders and beat it.
Your account name can be tied to your identity and reputation, should you meet a new person, rather than give them a business card you can quote your EOS account name and they'll be able to reach you across all different kinds of social media all with the one account name.
Should you get EOS based Ubers, and then get on the Lyft network, drivers will be able to see your reputation based on the account name.
Sub names like john.google.com could be invaluable when trying to tell if someone really represents that company or is trying to impersonate them as well. So an easily recognisable account name for companies will be invaluable for public recognition.
E.g. If I see a smart contract that promises X and it's signed and deployed by Google then I won't question it as much compared to it being deployed by randomAccount1585
Accounts represent entities or identities and for a normal user or business the number of accounts and their names is likely to be small.
If you compare account names to URIs or URLs people will be more interested in short names that are easy to remember or even form a word. Things start to get complicated if you want your account name to be representative for your identity.
Imagine you are a company that wants to deploy a smart contract with a specific name that matches your company or product name. The problem now may be that your desired account name is already blocked by somebody else. The value of this name will now rise from your brand name/company image and what it is worth to you. Also how user friendly your name is to type in may be a factor etc...
This is pretty similar to purchasing a domain for your website. They are all reserved and sold by special exchanges. The short ones are pretty expensive and also the ones including a brand name are likely to be already taken.
To prevent people to rush and reserve every account name in order to sell it or just block it for another company/user this 12 character limitation is used for now. But this may change if we got a better solution.
Currently there are not much dapp on EOS however in near future I absolutely believe there would be huge.
Like Apple store, google play, domain names.. the account name is represents your service name on EOS ecosystem. It should work the same way people recognize "good" domain name as it hints end-user what your service would look like.
