As someone who has invested in the new gtlds , I can say his prices increases won't affect me even 100.00 a year ... I don't own but very few of the strings being affected ... A few .link that's all.
I don't think it affects my portfolio of names mostly donuts .
You might believe that right now. But, let's suppose you intend to sell some of your domain names (if your business model is to resell, as opposed to being an end-user), rather than just hold them. The market value of your domains has been significantly affected, because now buyers will know that their total cost of ownership (initial price plus renewals) not only is uncertain, but has a chance of being astronomically high. Let's consider an equation from a buyer's point of view:
Total Cost of Ownership = Initial Price + Net Present Value of Future Renewals
To maintain a given total cost of ownership, if the expected "Net Present Value of Future Renewals" goes up, then the "Initial Price" must go down!
In many cases, the Net Present Value of Future Renewals will be so high that the Initial Price would have to be NEGATIVE! (i.e. the investor who is selling the domain name is essentially wiped out, and can't even give it away)
New gTLDs were always toxic. Punyregistry just made it clear to some exactly why, knowledge that more experienced domain name owners knew long ago (and thus shunned those TLDs, even at 1 cent or free). Go back to the ICANN comment periods years ago, and you'll see this. Frank Schilling himself was against such behaviour by registry operators, if it would affect his own domain names in .com/net/org, etc. That's why he plows his own money into .com (via expired domain name auctions).
The Punyregistry news hasn't reached the mainstream/traditional media yet, but it will as registrars slowly inform their customer base of the price changes. Some registry operators are already trying to distance themselves, but why should you trust them not to do the same thing? Empty words should be heavily discounted. Binding price caps by ICANN, which registry operators fought against, are the only solution.