.com When are people gonna let go of the .com era?

[Adriaanh]

I started to work in the IT industry back in the year 2000, back then the .com was big , but it is even bigger today, which worries me, there are a lot of other good domains available, which includes a description of the type of business or organisation that you have, some even your location. I dont see people letting go of the dot com era any time soon, it would've been fine if there were .coms left, but we reaching a stage of depletion, yet people want to cling to it. The other major problem is that MOST people arnt even aware that there are other domains available on the market, other than the once that we got familiar with over the years. It is a problem, resistance to change I think. What do you think ?

 

[RogueWriter]

If you add up all of the development costs, the advertising, the cost of moving the business entity to a non .com, etc., there has to have been several trillion dollars spent within the .com environment. .Com will always have a market, it's ingrained in the psyche of anyone who is online. I do believe the other extensions will gain traction and there will be terrific markets for them, but .com is always going to be the default against which everything else is measured. Established businesses, like Amazon.com, are not going to just switch and say, lets use something.whatever, so if you own something.whatever you will have to wait for a new entity to start up that wants that name. That is going to take a while.

 

[Adriaanh]

Agreed, but I think new startups should embrace the new domains, esp China, I dont see them doing it at all , they mainly interested in .com. I dont get it, if you want a new domain why must it be .com? Like you said, people think of the internet as 'dot com' .... I think the new domains are exciting and should definitely be embraced, but as the dot coms , they will also run out eventually (the good ones), so I try to invest in a few good ones and hang on to them, i dont want to make the same mistake as with the dot com, ...crying about the fact that i never invested in it back in the day lol...that was really stupid, but no one new what was coming...or maybe they did

 

[JayJay]

Even if you are only a startup do you really want to build your business (that you believe will be huge) on a .net or a .wasteoftime instead of paying up for the .com if its not already developed? Everyone hopefully is out there to promote they offer the best solution of their industry, its hard to push that belief when they dont even own what is already considered the best extension. The snowball will keep rolling down the hill gaining size and momentum in my opinion, if this past year isnt proof enough that .com is here to stay I dont know what is.

 

[RogueWriter]

Agreed, but I think new startups should embrace the new domains...

I agree, and I have invested in a number of the newer extensions.

 

[JB Lions]

Agreed, but I think new startups should embrace the new domains, esp China, I dont see them doing it at all , they mainly interested in .com. I dont get it, if you want a new domain why must it be .com?

Right, the last batch from this blog - http://dngeek.com/2015/11/103-newly...omain-names-privacy-com-uptake-com-modsy-com/

103 startups, 0 new gtlds.

What do they get, that a lot of domainers don't? Maybe they have people in the company that are smart, took a basic marketing course, understands consumer behavior etc. The reasons have been gone over to death in various threads.

 

[Kate]

I think it is important to look not just at the global landscape, but also at the national markets.
In America .com is dominant, but in foreign countries (Canada, Europe) the ccTLDs are very strong, even dominant. In those markets, .com is not always a must-have. It is even a second choice very often. It you are a big firm or trade internationally then .com is desirable. Ditto for hotels, restaurants. Local retailers are often satisfied with their local extension. So that you understand the power of ccTLDs, you must realize it's not rare to find names.cctld that are available in .com...

In a not-so-free market like China, some extensions like .top could be artificially popular because they are government-sanctioned (and easier to control). Sometimes, government regulation can influence the landscape.

I'm saying this because the domainer outlook is often so US-centric

 

[WatchDogue]

IMO dot com will remain the king of the hill for the long haul.

I can imagine " newer " dots staking their claim in the respective markets for which they were created once the respective market leaders use the " new dot" as part and parcel of their business ads and media campaigns.

The more that dot specific businesses use their marketplace specific dot the more likely others in that market place will follow.

 

[Recons.Com]

It is very simple.
.com is the default domain in most instances. People just memorize the first part the second they assume the default.
Only few exceptions to this default thinking:
1. cctld in some developed local markets like co.uk, .de, .ru, .no etc.
2. .org for any non-profit
3. .edu for educational.

So you tell them your domain and let's say it is recons.net for arguments sake. In a month a client decides to go to your website and he types ... recons.com

In addition, unless it is your cctld or .org for your type of activity, choosing another extension is like "poor man's dot com" with immediate assumption that you could not get yourself a dot com and settled for something else.

And why would a business care to waste money and effort to fight those perceptions instead of paying up the premium and getting done with it?!

 

[DomainVP]

Follow the money.

.COM will continue to be valuable as long as there is billions invested in the namespace.

 

[jedaprin]

The Answer is Never .com will never die so as long as there's internet Domains

Imagine .com as a tree and its branches are other domain extensions .biz / .com.uk / .xyz / .link
Everyone will always much rather a .com but they will settle for a premium name in other extensions

that deosnt mean .com will be not favored

people may get rid of there sites for a more premium domain name with a different extension but it will be a hell of a long time before any other extension will catch up to 120 million registered domains

 

[cocaseco]

It's scheduled for phasing out right after America goes metric.

 

[zycfour]

Kind of like:
There was Mercedes Benz, and now there are Ford, BMW, Honda etc
There was IBM, and now there are Apple, Lenovo, Acer ..
There was ICQ, and now there are "you name it...

 

[greggb]

I started to work in the IT industry back in the year 2000, back then the .com was big , but it is even bigger today, which worries me, there are a lot of other good domains available, which includes a description of the type of business or organisation that you have, some even your location. I dont see people letting go of the dot com era any time soon, it would've been fine if there were .coms left, but we reaching a stage of depletion, yet people want to cling to it. The other major problem is that MOST people arnt even aware that there are other domains available on the market, other than the once that we got familiar with over the years. It is a problem, resistance to change I think. What do you think ?

Dude, we bank on resistance to change. Don't go preaching about changing it.

 

[brandnow]

It's scheduled for phasing out right after America goes metric.

After Bernie Sanders gets into office we'll go metric.

 

[baseballworld]

Believe that they will let go when hell freezes over.

 

[paul79]

i think .com will be king for a good while yet but i think you can't discount extensions like .net either. check out the sales for some of these other extensions and they are pretty good recently with the chinese boom.

 

[user-name]

.com, .co, .net, .org , .biz and .io are clearly leading the current market despite 1000s of gltds are poring in.

 

[Area52]

Dotcom is iconic, the public will always think of that extension first. Dotcom will die when the internet does.

 

[user-name]

one downside of new gtlds are is that they are very expensive. not affordable for 50% of the world of consumers specially in africa and in asia.