[gyulai]

Yes, it may be genuinely true that a .COM engenders more trust. Just like it may also be genuinely true that a BMW engenders more trust than a VW.

There's a lot of things you can do to try to game your way into trust: Your BMW could be leased. Your .COM might be a totally stupid name that no one wants. You may have a mailing address on Wall Street or in SOMA from a "virtual office" provider. You may have a telephone system that directs callers through 10 levels of operators before putting a call through to you and a hundred role e-mail addresses that all land in your inbox. You can buy an "aged entity" and highlight to people the fact that your company was incorporated 10 years ago, when you really haven't been in business for even just one year. You can put up an "our team" page on your website, and show a dozen faces of people who you're each paying for 5hrs/month on Upwork.

People eventually see through all the crap and will ultimately distrust you for having tried to fool them. The sum total of trust destroyed by trying to game people's perceptions of you will probably outweigh the trust you've successfully managed to game your way into. And in addition to destroying trust, it also destroys money.

Also: It's a zero sum game. If entrepreneurs collectively refused to play it, they would be better off as a group. For example, the trust advantage enjoyed by .COMs would evaporate over time if trustworthy people refuse to pay for that trust-advantage. (They would just use other TLDs that would then become just as trustworthy). The same is true for prestigious locations for business real estate, etc.