Anyone Miss the Old Days of Domain Drops and the Domain Catching Wars?

Domain Nostalgia? (Ya, fer shur, go reg it. ;--P )

[Webwork]

I just had a wistful moment, thinking of the old days, when domain drop catching was a bit of a game, a sort of wild west adventure.

I'm not wistful for routinely getting outgunned by Master Ye, who once d/b/a "NoName", or by Michael Mann's BuyDomain machine, or "that other guy".

Still, even in those days, you could still sneak in and manage to grab some gems.

Now, it's all big business and mostly the game is over. Be ready to bid big and know who catches what. These days, when it's a big game hunt, it's Bonkers vs. Vertical Axis versus a few interlopers.

Anyone miss the old days? Am I getting domain old and aged? Ready to be put out to pasture?

[rocker]

I remember back in May-June 2001 when SnapNames first went live. Picking up expired domain for $35.00 was like shooting fish in a bucket. SnapNames had an incredible success rate.

There was no auction, first one to get a snapback on the domain got it when it expired. By August 2001 you had no chance in the world to get a snapback on a domain name. Practically every domain had a Snapback on it. Even names like Google, Yahoo, AOL... all had snapbacks on them.

Yes, Webwork thoses were some good times when the average person actually had a chance of picking up an expired domain.

[Webwork]

Yeah, and then someone at the dropcatchers got a better idea: Catch 'em and auction 'em . . . and there goes the even playing field once again. ;-P

[trader]

Right, those good old days are long gone. I do not even bother to try anymore as I was most always outgunned and definately outbid by a mile. Even the old $60 Snaps worked well for a while.

I realized the game was definately over about 3 yrs ago when (in my view) my semi-worthless odd names which I let drop to save renewal fees were routinely picked up by BuyDomains on the drop.

[DonMateo]

There are still some ccTLD drops that are worthwhile. In fact many ccTLDs don't even seem to have drop-catch companies auctioning domains.

[Hunter]

I'm glad it's over, it was too much work :)