When domain registrations for the .uk TLD* were introduced in 2014, many in the technical community dismissed it as a cynical cash grab by Nominet. Since then, they seem to have been proven right, as evidenced in media coverage by The Register among others. However, several years ago I registered a .uk domain to use for personal emails, as much for the novelty as anything.
Today I was amused to discover that even official UK government websites think that the .uk TLD is dodgy. I used my .uk email address for an online government service, at which point the government website told me that it thought I had put in my email address wrongly and suggested that perhaps I meant to write a .fr address (for France) instead. See for yourself:
So it's official: the UK government trusts the French domain system more than the UK one.
(Yes, I'm being somewhat tongue in cheek with this post, but I do think it's quite telling that over 8 years after Nominet's domain registration policy change and over 2 years after Brexit, .uk domains are so unpopular that official UK government websites suggest domains from another EU country in preference.)
* By which I mean domains of the format example.uk instead of example.co.uk or example.org.uk, etc.