I never said gdn is better then top or xyz All I am saying that they are all brands and people give preference to one than the other IMO just like people like Apple Phone vs Android phones or vice versa doesn't make one brand o and the other a hero. It about people preferences. Talking about preferences as per stats on namestat.org, GDN has higher preference in USA with 35% registered domains compared to xyz with just 7%. This means GDN is a better brand in USA and XYZ is a better brand in CHINA.
Not it means that for some reason more speculators and spammers from China bought .xyz but we don't know why.
Hint: It probably to do with the fact that the xyz registry paid many large registrars to promote their domains on their website!
Actually gdn has no meaning other the meaning that was given to it by the registry. No one knows about this so for society it has no meaning.
.xyz are the last 3 letters of the alphabet so it means something to most people.
.com does not mean anything to most but most know that it is the default extension for websites so it has a really important meaning for everything internet related.
.gdn has no development and thus no people preference.
.gdn competes against many other short extensions like .cx, sx, cc, .tl, .im, .to and many many others.
It is worse than most of these so it is so bad that it will never get good prices on the aftermarket.
This means GDN is a better brand in USA and XYZ is a better brand in CHINA.
.gdn is NOT a brand because no one knows about it and it has no meaning. You would have to promote it heavily so that everyone knows about it(and remembers it).
This won't happen. Try to make people remember what .gdn means. Most will not care or forget it. To make it a global brand you would have to invest hundreds of millions in advertising at least or more.
.xyz has at least some potential as a brand because everyone has learned the sequence XYZ at school. At least people can remember it.
That doesn't mean that it is well known as a website ending but at least there is something about it that people know and understand.