Who resolves disputes in a distributed DNS system? Is it just a race for land, first who plants a flag gets it?

The internet's domain registry does absolutely need management. It just needs management which is unbiased and competent.

In practice, Google is already a mediator of sorts. They decide that "car parts" points you to carparts.com while "computer parts" points you to newegg.com. (I hear there are other search engines that provide a similar service.)

All we really need is a canonical identity that doesn't change when IP addresses change. It could just as well be a random string.

Perhaps we don't need manage everything. Perhaps not every action needs arbitration. On a bright side such system can't be shut down or censored.