I would guess this would be somewhere in between ccTLDs and IDNs I hope someone can be generous and share their tips on this.

For instance, has there been any research into the extent to which users "merge" domain practices, i.e. use their mother tongue to the left of the .com yet instead of appending their ccTLD, out of habit just type .com?

For instance, the Swedish word for movie theater is "bio". Instead of typing "bio.SE" they type in "bio.COM" out of habit (that domain is long gone by the way).

Anyway, I have a feeling that there are opportunities here, but not alot of people are open about it and I would love to share info on this.

Thanks!

I haven't seen any research on this but it bears some further thought. Let me know if you manage to dig anything up.

I've also had the idea that the whole domain space needs a number of PHDs done on it. From questions like you've posed through to why do identical pages get completely different click rates.

I almost bought 3-letter domain name (.com) 2 days ago, and found out it was some IDN equivalent. For instance, IDN was like XN--M1ACH.com but it appear LLL.com in some other language. What does that mean? Is it worth it?

I was mistakenly buying something I didn't want.

I think that certain IDNs are really worthwhile. The problem that I have is that I only speak English so it's hard for me to properly evaluate them.