The quick answer? $0. For a more complex one, keep reading.

According to Konstantinos, roughly $90k in sales were generated, with the top sales being Fashion.NYC at $37,000 and Shop.NYC at $33,500.

But how much of the money that is about to change hands will end up in the pockets of domainers?

A bit fat $0.

This is perhaps the biggest problem with new gTLDs from the perspective of domain investors: they suck money away from the aftermarket.

The chain is broken, so to speak.

For us to have a viable reseller market, money has to circulate.

Imagine a circle and think about aftermarket transactions from that perspective.

John sells a domain to Bill for $1,000 through an auction and then uses those $1,000 to buy a domain from Larry, who uses the $1k he got to buy a $1,000 domain from… Bill 🙂

It’s an over-simplification but you get the point.

We all love end user sales (as in we’d love to sell a domain to an end user for $10k rather than to a domainer for $1k) but while we wait for those sales, it’s good to know we have a healthy reseller market where money circulates in case we need liquidity.

With new gTLDs, this chain is broken.

John sells a domain to Bill for $1,000 through an auction and then uses those $1,000 to buy a domain from a new gTLD registry instead of Larry. That registry uses the money outside the reseller market and bam, we have a problem. John doesn’t spend his $1,000 on the reseller market to buy from Larry, who himself might not be able to afford to buy a $1,000 domain from Bill for this reason.

As time passes, there’s less and less money on the reseller market because of this.

Can we blame new gTLD registries?

Of course not!

They’re running a business and quite frankly, want to suck as much money from the domaining industry as possible. Each business obviously wants to make as much as possible and new gTLD registries operate within the same paradigm. It’s just business as usual, what new g’d are doing is in no way illegal or even immoral.

What it is however is toxic to the domaining industry.

Let’s face it: there’s a war for capital going on and new gTLDs are not “on our side” so to speak.

On the contrary, let’s be blunt: they’re the enemy.

If possible, a lot of them would like to sell to end users themselves and if that’s not possible, they’ll settle for selling to domainers but by squeezing as much money out of each transaction as possible.

Again, nothing we can blame them for.

Nothing they’re doing is illegal, nothing is immoral either.

“Toxic” is the perfect word to describe this state of affairs.

If we don’t acknowledge this, we’re doing the industry but most importantly ourselves a huge disservice IMO.

I have nothing against new gTLDs personally, I really don’t. A lot of smart people that I respect are working for or with various new gTLD players, good for them. However, facts are facts and no matter how you spin it, new gTLDs are toxic for the aftermarket.