E-mail, however, will be problematic. Which speaks to some of the problems that New.net will face in trying to inspire widespread adoption. New.net's big challenge is going to be to advertise both effectively and honestly. It does have the advantage of a serious marketing budget and a consumer-oriented approach. And if it can't say that, in one form or another, it will be hard to attract users.
Monopoly is an issue whenever there is a scarce resource controlled by a small number of entities.
Over time, with enough competition, it will lose its prestige, and the market will be a broader market of a variety of attractive TLDs. Another challenge is that simply throwing the system open to all comers, though it sounds appealing, is a risky proposition. The tactic here is to limit the changes until we have a good idea of what the system can handle. But the risk seems negligible to a lot of smart people. Anyone is free to do what New.net is doing, but it will create a mess, since the site you reach will start to depend on what ISP you use.