This is a fair question. I had similar worries. What will happen to my coms in the face of all these new names. how will it impact the industry. The short answer is - "Everything will work out and the business will grow."
I say: more names = more opportunity. If I exclude registry revenue this should still be one of our better sales years.. Not the best (unless the team pulls off a turnaround) but still good. Most of that sales revenue is in .com but a growing tranche (each day) is from new names which is "amazing" since 1. lots of people still don't know they exist and 2. lots of great names are available unregistered.
On the market side we are seeing lots of secondary market transactions go down on new GTLDs and will return to publishing a list of sales in the coming months. It's a large trove of deals going down across customer accounts at Uniregistry. Mostly Com and a bunch of new stuff
In the old days if you were a domainer with a portfolio of borderline pigeons-sh*t .com names (bottom percentile) you could shuffle along with the big dogs and roll like a domainer boss. That time is over and all these new names are separating the men from the boys. Nobody is going to imagine how great your average .com could be in the future and talk up your names or pay them attention when one word generics in new extensions are available unregistered. If you're the guy with that class of .com name you're going to feel a bit pissed and vulnerable. You lost some sparkle. The biggest dogs don't like it either because their "really" good names look less good when a viable new G stands next to it. That comment is going to have a bunch of folks spit back at me but it's the truth. GreatName.com doesn;t look that good to an outsider (non domainer) when great name.shop .link .web .club .online .world etc etc etc etc stand next to it. Anyone who says otherwise is a hater, a denier or just too close to their names. The world is absolutely changing. It's happening slowly right now but it will accelerate with the passage of time and as the 12 year olds today turn 20 in 8 years. MB selling his portfolio (which many of us valued at 100 million or more) for the low tens of millions and the value of the Marchex deal can't make the guys (including myself) holding vast swaths of premium names feel very good. We all lost some money there. My portfolio is not worth as much (wholesale) today because of new GTLDS. Retail sales prices are still holding up, but we are seeing lots of dictionary word sales in new GTLD's in the low thousands going down along side those now on the Uniregistry Market.
I say easy come, easy go.. You have to roll with it or retire and some are chosing the latter. To be fair, some of those retiring are plowing that new retirement money into new names. MB bought my.mom (one of the best) for 10k when we accidentally let it out. It's his, it has a low renewal and he's in the money IMO.
Where we are today is a flashpoint where those with average to low quality .com/net names are disillusioned by all the new stuff, while the chinese and new faces are flooding into the room with new money and think they never had it so good. They're right of course.. Today you have history, and guidebooks, and a university course (cyger) and tools and forums like this and lots of names to chose from. When I started there was none of that.
Some of the old timers are angry and freaked out - the newcomers are sweeping up, but some of the same sly foxes who took the good .com names back in the day are still participating (myself included). The game hasn't changed. You just need to get the best names. You can't hurry that. I built my portfolio over 15 years. It's a journey.. you can't hurry the curry.
Lastly and very important. Not everybody knows what they are doing in domaining.. that is, not everyone is good enough at this business to pick well, mine well, sell well - in a nutshell - not everyone is cut out for this business. Those who "can't" will hate on this business and blame the backdrop when they fail. That's a given. This change in tide and 400 new extensions (half of which shouldn't be bought) are going to show you who can and who can't. The only certainty is the names will get bought. I could stand here and shout STOP BUYING NAMES - DANGER!! and people will still buy them, the need, the hunger and the opportunity is just too great.
I was born broke and am blathering like this because I'm bored and have nothing to do 8 miles in the air, writing from my seat on N265QS as I fly from Houston to Canada. Every gallon of gas pushing this bird forward, bought and paid for with my own domains. Uniregistry? Funded with those names? The sales marketplace? Domains again. Stocks, real estate, my giraffe? All paid for by picking the right names. If I can do that in 10 years with no outside money or support, no debt, think what you can do with a whole world of new extensions if you're just prepared to take a prudent well thought out risk.
Good luck to all.