In an article he wrote on Circle ID, Mason Cole the VP of  Communications and Industry Relations at Donuts, expressed his frustration with ICANN and some policies that are hindering new gtld launches.

From the article:

The New gTLD Program should be the culmination of ICANN’s original mission to introduce real competition to the domain name marketplace. The program should dramatically increase consumer choice, end an era of false scarcity and artificial limitation, and create a marketplace driven by real competition.

 

The registries participating in the program are already providing some of that value, to be sure, but we remain hobbled by a series of conscious policy decisions that intentionally constrain our ability to compete with the very incumbents against whom we were created to compete.

 

The steps we take now and in the coming months and years to level that playing field, and provide a real and competitive landscape will go a long way toward determining the success of the program.

 

As of today, participants in the new gTLD program are subject to several key competitive disadvantages, relating to our registrar channels, the domains we are able to sell, and the complicated rules under which we can sell them.

Its not just Cole who is frustrated as domain investors are perplexed by so many keywords being unavailable due to the name collision list.

This really was not thought out well imo, no extension should have been open for business until they could go full steam ahead. Domain investors are no strangers to games being played and without doing the homework many are not sure if a name is just being held back as a future premium or if the registry can’t allow registration because of ICANN.

Read the full Mason Cole article here