.io seems solidified as branding indicating that the business is oriented to developers, being a niche of "B2B." It may feel like a fad but the TLD is valuable

.io seems solidified as branding indicating that the business is oriented to developers, being a niche of "B2B." It may feel like a fad but the TLD is valuable for reasons other than availability, unlike deliberate misspellings you cite such as Flickr.