I apologize for, like many others, not picking up on the except country code reference in OP. But anyway, we have a nice discussion of country code going now
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In
@jmcc recent book he makes the point that it is the large number of adoptions and use by small businesses that really drive a TLD to succeed (hopefully paraphrasing that accurately). I think in a fair chunk of the Earth, we see that if you look at the majority of active websites, like real authentic ones, the country code has a slight lead, but if we look at say the top 100 or something, then .com will dominate. I would say that is true in Canada, and from what I read seems so in much of Europe. So who is king kind of depends on definition of king. A TLD like .de can be very strong in Germany, but in global impact, since most of use in Germany and a few other countries, not so much. But in Germany, it may well be king.
As a global presence, I can't see in near future anyone coming close to .com. However, particularly if politics continues to fracture globalization, it is possible that in many parts of the world country codes will become even stronger.
I don't see .org or .net in a position to challenge .com, nor do i see .co, .io etc. They will continue to probably grow use, but nowhere near to .com.
Most of the new extensions are meant to be niche players. That does not mean that they can't be successful in those niches, just that only a few (like .xyz) are general purpose like .com is (and those few don't seem destined for dominance). I think it is possible, but unlikely, that an extension like .news might become a challenge in the news sector, and others in other niches, so collectively they might dent the .com dominance a bit, but we are nowhere near actually seeing that yet.
I see, unlike some or many probably, that the dominance of .com will slowly weaken, but it will still be #1 for a long time. Probably much longer than my horizon in domain names.
Bob