Was still a thing in the late 2000s, at least in my (european) internet bubble at the time. This was also one of the only ways for a broke middle schooler with

Was still a thing in the late 2000s, at least in my (european) internet bubble at the time. This was also one of the only ways for a broke middle schooler without a credit card to get a cool "real" domain. Combine it with dyndns, self-host some ancient-but-free bulletin-board software (Woltlab Burning Board may ring a bell for the European / German audience) after learning about this "Apache2" and "mod_php" thing and your small slice of internet with 10 users max is done. Good times. :D