When a startup can’t get the .COM, is .NET still even on their radar?

A friend of mine is buying a domain for his startup, it’s not their primary domain, it’s the name of a product. The .COM that matches the product domain is owned by a multi-billion dollar company so while it’s still possible to buy, getting it for less than six-figures would be unlikely.

So when it came to their second choice, .APP was what they were looking at, and after that .CO. I was surprised that .NET wasn’t in their top two so asked my friend a bit more about that. He said that he was a fan of .NET but that most of the team felt it was an old/less-relevant extension, they also talked to one of their advisors who said the domain broker they had been working with had always been down on .NET.

I’ve seen a handful of situations like this over the last few months, companies that look at extensions like .IO, .APP, .CO, .AI and others and often don’t even consider .NET. While I’m a fan of .IO and .CO, I’m not a big .APP guy, that one makes less sense to me, but I still have plenty of love for .NET.

Is .NET less hip than something like .IO or .CO? What do you think?

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton