* Three years is plenty of time to make some sort of impact, it's plenty of time to gain some sort of MOMENTUM.
* The Namescon auction will be highly publicized and will not include any good news for the aftermarket or show any kind of demand.
* The Namescon auction is sponsored by registries that have a vested interest in seeing good results, which won't happen. You can't blame the poor results on a biased auction.
* If registration is up 240%, there should be demand in the aftermarket. The number '240%' includes $.01 registrations, or rather "free give aways".
* The majority of the aftermarket activity is from the highly speculative Chinese market.
The momentum is in "use" and "investment" There isn't an aftermarket yet. Aftermarkets don't just appear. They are a product of use and investment.
Just 3 years ago, .com had 99% of the start up market. Today it's 68%. This demonstrates a willingness of "Users" to adopt something other than .com This is "real people"
The TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon; one of the most prestigious hackathons in the country was held at Pier 48,San Francisco over the weekend of 10-11 September 2016. The event saw over 60% of the teams using a new domain extension to host their hackathon projects on including overall winners -
Hackers were excited to use the new domain extensions and claimed availability of names, high recall value, meaningful and descriptive extensions to be some of the primary reasons to use the names, not a substitute till they can get .com
[they] "are extremely happy with the choice of the domain name. It showcases exactly what the product does"
.Com has regular "teasers" for 99 cents. registrations for com/net are in decline.
It took .com nearly 15 years to reach the same amount of registrations and a steady aftermarket.
NamesCon auction is and has always favored .com geared toward .com investors not "end users" of any kind. which is OK but not indicative the rest of the world.
I have personally witnessed .com investors say they are only buying .coms then bid on New "G"s ( called them on it too)
I have yet to see the NamesCon auction promote New "G"s beyond listing them. Registries/registrars have also been slow to promote. This may change with it's new owners.
.Club is a stand out with razor sharp promotion and pro active results (getting into a closed China market) and doing quite well.
Porkbun is also doing well focusing on "users" So is Radix- Have you met the team? They are awesome!
Last year's auction results for New "G"s did quite well considering "Nobody has ever heard of them" and the majority of investors were .com heavy. You should attend to see for yourself rather than speculate.
Again, please post facts vs opinion based on what? Facts. Facts. Facts. So we can come to our own informed opinions.
Happy Hunting