Yeah, but thats not a good or really accurate way to compare either. There was very little choice back then. .Com was the standard. If .com wasnt developed the internet wouldn't have been beyond what it was before it. And .com was never released the way .info, biz and.us is with all the speculation hoopla and ease of registration.
My point being is that .com has a huge advantage over the new tlds for actual use. There basically was little else. Having more else, especially with general make sense tlds and the actual creator of .coms own personal little extension, even with the speculation, may change the landscape dramatically in the 12-24 months.
In spite of that, .com was very heavily speculated on and most .coms are parking pages, or have for sale signs or are irrelevant porn sites or are dropping.
I think actual registrations is a good way to measure. You can't compare directly with .com but I think you can compare with other new extensions and it can give you a feel.
Use will be the end determiner.