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information Are gTLD alternatives “stealing the bread” of traditional domain investors?

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Totaling more than 7 million registrations, each one of the top 30 gTLDs have a minimum of 40,000 domains per zone file to be included on that list.
The numbers so far show that very little has changed in how domains are perceived by end users. If a particular domain isn’t available, the option to register an alternative name is still the top choice. While some will move to the new gTLDs under that same keyword, there is so far very little awareness of the new gTLD domains by the general consumer public.
It’s still very early to tell what will be the breaking point of the current gTLD namespace. As Registries commit to a 5 year sustainability agreement with ICANN, by that time we’ll see whether some decide to call it quits...
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
Dilute the name space. It's meaningless at this point except for the new gTLD registries which obviously can make plenty of profit from as few as 40,000 registrations.

Domainers have control over this situation, but they are too busy clamoring over each other for half a dollar to realize they could drive most new registries into oblivion by not speculating in any new gTLD. Right now the new registries, and a healthy chunk of the old ones, are living large off of domainer reg's and renewals.
 
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In a few months I will have participated in this space for nearly ten years. I have had thousands of domains run through my portfolio but only four sales over $1500 in that timespan (two were hand-regged Spanish .COMs). None of those have occurred since the launch of the new TLDs. Many of my sales over the years have gone to investors so with so much capital going into new TLDs the last 20 months I have seen a dropoff in sales of .COM, .Net and .TV
 
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Given that all the "good" dot com are either in use or locked up by domainers/investors holding out for fantasy prices, an end user without a big budget only has two choices that I can see.

1. Go for a key phrase dot com that is niched down so far it is still available.
2. Look around for an acceptable non dot com.

Once the decision is made to go with a non dot com I am not seeing many strong arguments for paying a lot for any particular choice.

A reasonable choice for some would be .de and some other country codes. For everyone else it seems like most any one would be as good as any other, so why pay a premium?
 
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" 'stealing the bread' of traditional domain investors " is a rather extreme sentiment...
 
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In my opinion, the gTLDs have an impact on the reseller market: they tap the disposable income of domainers, depressing the reseller market even further. Domainers spend money on new extensions, that they could have spent on .com. They give money to registries, rather than trade among themselves.

So there is a shift of some sort in the way investment (or gambling) funds are allocated.

The reseller market is one thing, the real market (the extensions that end users really buy and use) is another.
 
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The reseller market is one thing, the real market (the extensions that end users really buy and use) is another.

I think a lot of people miss that distinction. The reseller market is based on a lot of speculation. The end-user market (or the "real market" in your terms) doesn't have that factor. For registrars, there's only one market. And so, resellers do a lot to drive prices. In the past, however, we've seen that drive in prices affect the end-user market too. They're all ultimately connected, but there's a delay in that connection.
 
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How much has the supply of aftermarket (held for resale) domain names increased since the new TLDs have been launched?

How much has end user demand for aftermarket domain names changed over the last two years?

How many new TLD domains have been bought by domain investors in the last 20 months with funds that might have otherwise been spent to acquire aftermarket domains in .COM, .Net, etc were there no such thing as new TLDs?
 
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