I may be wrong and just speaking from experience, but Americans were really trapped in the .com/net/org for a long time. I think, because that's all we were exposed to... I didn't realize the depth and usage of CCTLDs until I moved to Europe, and saw them everywhere.
When I gave my mom my first work email she added a .com after the .at at the end, and wondered why it never got to me.
Because the name you wish to register is not available as .com domain.
> Nobody is going to remember or type in such a domain
I don't think this is true, I live in Europe and we have tons of country tlds, people use and remember them.
Also is chris.blog really so much longer to type then chris.com or a lot harder to remember? I don't agree.
At first it might feel strange to type something else then .com but as I said in europe we have country tlds and it works well.