.XYZ Domain name in Nigeria

To me, it sounds cool, easy to remember and a domain for the future. Google already has secured abc.xyz for Alphabet. My question is - Would you advise a young startup in Nigeria to adopt the .xyz domain name as an alternative after losing out on a .com first choice?

No. Period.

depending on your product and audience, .xyz might sound a little bit unusual.

No, I wouldn’t advise you to use a .xyz domain as an official domain name for your business. Google bought abc.xyz as an information page and not part of their service domains.

You could try appending something to the original choice and see if it’s available. For example, if you wanted to register “rectangle.com” and the domain isn’t available and you can’t afford to buy from the owner, then you could try the following derivatives:
rectangleapp.com
therectangle.com
rectangle.co
rectangle.io
rectangle.com.ng
rectangle.ng
rectangle.biz, etc.

I believe the above are better options compared to rectangle.xyz. The latter doesn’t sound serious enough as a domain name for a business.

Cheers!

My thoughts exactly.