There will be some of the new sponsored gTLD's that survive but I think mainly they will go the way of .pro, existing rather than growing.
Actually, I think that very few gTLD's will survive, but do you agree that the sheer number that are being released will (in time) change people's expectations toward domain names?...
I think it will. After all, .com means nothing that i'm aware of, even 'though it has been very good to me and i've sold quite a few "big ticket" .com names in my time. For me, the answer lies in what I would have done 20 years ago... before the internet was even a gleam in the public's eye.
For example, if I was asked to choose between ameri.ca and america.com (on a site that is
about America), I would have chosen ameri.ca at that time, because in my opinion it is much more visually impressive and meaningful than the .com.
Of course, I wouldn't have known what .com related to back then... (but then I still don't now!).
So i'd still make the same choice of domain even today, and I think that people instinctively know when something is right, or is a true "authority", and I feel that .com has always been some kind of "smoke and mirrors" routine, perpetuated by money-hungry folks with a vested interest in keeping the pretence going.
Am I advocating the death of .com? No. At least, not for a while yet...
And for those of you who want to chime in that hacks are inferior, because they don't pass the 'radio test', you can skip it. I have clients who have bought single-word hacks, and they are using them in their marketing programs and they encounter no verbal difficulties at all.
In fact, their hacks are currently
outperforming their old .com counterparts by a significant margin.