Isn't that a slightly different point? You're talking about ability of a user to discover or find the site, not the user's perception of the strength of the business.
Re:Change Your Name
by just_had_coffee on Sunday August 09, 2015 @04:07PM
(#10031383)
...but the point is that to some non-technical users a "new" TLD won't even look like a full URL.
That is beambot's point, and it's valid, but it's different than the point in this essay.
Don't typical web users these days always search instead of typing in the domain name?
My parents are typical web users. Fairly tech savvy, but not tech insiders. I recall telling them about bit.ly. It took a while to explain that it wasn't bitly.com, bit.ly.com, etc. They ended up just searching for it instead of typing in the domain name.
Think of the added friction this causes... and as we all know, every added interaction detracts from the conversion funnel. Taken in aggregate, many startups cannot afford the attrition of a shitty domain name.