4 ms·

Back in the internet's early days, it was easy to get a domain name. They were cheap or even free. That is not exactly how I remember things. Everyone bought d

Back in the internet's early days, it was easy to get a domain name. They were cheap or even free. That is not exactly how I remember things. Everyone bought domains from one registrar (was it Network Solutions?) and the cheapest domain started at around $100. There were all sorts of short and trademarked dot-coms available though, that is true. I'm going by ancient memory here and would love it if someone corrects me.

rwmj 1y ago
Plus you could only interact with NS by filling in fields in a text file and emailing it to them, and hoping you did it right so their script made the changes you intended. Even at the time, this was annoying.
neom 1y ago
You could get free domains in the 90s still, a few that were totally free because they wanted to sell you hosting, many of them ad supported with an iframe however (although you could easily break out of the iframe and present your content without it).
- kragen 1y ago
  Ads on the internet were mostly prohibited during the early-internet period due to the NSFNET AUP.
  - neom 1y ago
    I used NameZero for johnedgar.com in 98, and it had an iframe ad, Freeservers, FortuneCity, and Xoom also all gave free domains in exchange for ads.
    - kragen 1y ago
      Yes, but that was about five or ten years after the end of the early internet, well into the dot-com bubble. The internet proper had been operating for 20 years at that point, and the first ARPANET packets were 29 years earlier. The NSFNET AUP had ceased to be a factor 3 years earlier: https://www.merit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Retiring-the-NSFNET-Backbone-Service_-Chronicling-the-End-of-an-Era-1.pdf https://www.merit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Retiring-th... All of those companies were founded in the com-priv era.
      - neom 1y ago
        Apparently we have different definitions of "the early internet" - I consider it anything before 2000. If the argument is the 90s are not the early internet therefore I am wrong, I'll accept that perspective.
        kragen 1y ago
        Apparently, and there is no objectively correct answer. But the year 2000, or even 01998, is closer to today than it is to RFC 20, the oldest surviving RFC. From my point of view at the time, companies like NameZero and Xoom were Johnny-come-lately scumbags in danger of destroying the internet through their flagrant disregard for its culture and traditions. Looters. And, from today's perspective, I'm not sure I was wrong.
        neom 1y ago
        That's interesting to hear - I presume you're a little older than me I'm 40. I never met anyone else in person in the 90s who also used the internet (I grew up in rural uk) - everyone I knew who used the internet was on the internet, so for me it felt extremely undiscovered. FWIW I probably would never have gotten into the web in the way I did had it not been for NameCheap, having a domain and being able to show off on IRC was a lot of what drove me forward so personally I'm incredibly grateful of them. :)
        kragen 1y ago
        Yeah, I was in favor of commercialization precisely because it was necessary for inclusion, but horrified by how much of that commercialization turned out. I started using it in 01992, at which point there were no ISPs anywhere within thousands of kilometers, so the only way to get access to the internet was to know people in person. NameZero was from 01999 evidently: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/namezero https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/namezero
        airstrike 1y ago
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
xoa 1y ago
>That is not exactly how I remember things. Everyone bought domains from one registrar (was it Network Solutions?) and the cheapest domain started at around $100 By the mid to late 90s (my own earliest domain) yes. But a quick whois on milk.com shows a creation date of 1985-01-01, and that dates back to basically the foundation of DNS at all, RFC 882 & 883 were 1983. Initially it was just the Stanford Research Institute manually maintaining HOSTS.TXT for arpanet. IIRC you like, literally called up Elizbeth Feinler during business hours and just asked and that was it. This is all second hand because I was just a wee lad at that point and wouldn't even discover BBS until well after that heady era! As things got formalized yeah unfortunately some players were able to start grabbing at monopolies, and NetSol began operating the registry for DISA in I think 91 or 92? It was still initially free, but then pretty quickly they started commercializing. But if someone got in truly on the ground floor it was pretty informal, academic and free. Getting a block of IPv4 was pretty easy/free for a long while into the 90s as well.
- thomassmith65 1y ago
  That explains it, thanks! I wasn't on the net till the '90s
kragen 1y ago
That wasn't the early days of the internet. It was free when I registered ear.org in probably 01994, 24 years after the ARPANET started and 16 years after the first TCP/IP internet nodes. You just had to have a nameserver set up. Shortly after that they started charging, and I hadn't carried out my plans with it, so I let it go, figuring that someone else would make better use of it. They didn't.
- muragekibicho 1y ago
  I googled ear.org. Complete waste tbh. It's just blank
euroderf 1y ago
> (was it Network Solutions?) rs.internic.net, if memory serves. It stopped redirecting to anything some years ago.

rwmj 1y ago

Plus you could only interact with NS by filling in fields in a text file and emailing it to them, and hoping you did it right so their script made the changes you intended. Even at the time, this was annoying.

neom 1y ago

You could get free domains in the 90s still, a few that were totally free because they wanted to sell you hosting, many of them ad supported with an iframe however (although you could easily break out of the iframe and present your content without it).

kragen 1y ago
Ads on the internet were mostly prohibited during the early-internet period due to the NSFNET AUP.
- neom 1y ago
  I used NameZero for johnedgar.com in 98, and it had an iframe ad, Freeservers, FortuneCity, and Xoom also all gave free domains in exchange for ads.
  - kragen 1y ago
    Yes, but that was about five or ten years after the end of the early internet, well into the dot-com bubble. The internet proper had been operating for 20 years at that point, and the first ARPANET packets were 29 years earlier. The NSFNET AUP had ceased to be a factor 3 years earlier: https://www.merit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Retiring-the-NSFNET-Backbone-Service_-Chronicling-the-End-of-an-Era-1.pdf https://www.merit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Retiring-th... All of those companies were founded in the com-priv era.
    - neom 1y ago
      Apparently we have different definitions of "the early internet" - I consider it anything before 2000. If the argument is the 90s are not the early internet therefore I am wrong, I'll accept that perspective.
      - kragen 1y ago
        Apparently, and there is no objectively correct answer. But the year 2000, or even 01998, is closer to today than it is to RFC 20, the oldest surviving RFC. From my point of view at the time, companies like NameZero and Xoom were Johnny-come-lately scumbags in danger of destroying the internet through their flagrant disregard for its culture and traditions. Looters. And, from today's perspective, I'm not sure I was wrong.
        neom 1y ago
        That's interesting to hear - I presume you're a little older than me I'm 40. I never met anyone else in person in the 90s who also used the internet (I grew up in rural uk) - everyone I knew who used the internet was on the internet, so for me it felt extremely undiscovered. FWIW I probably would never have gotten into the web in the way I did had it not been for NameCheap, having a domain and being able to show off on IRC was a lot of what drove me forward so personally I'm incredibly grateful of them. :)
        kragen 1y ago
        Yeah, I was in favor of commercialization precisely because it was necessary for inclusion, but horrified by how much of that commercialization turned out. I started using it in 01992, at which point there were no ISPs anywhere within thousands of kilometers, so the only way to get access to the internet was to know people in person. NameZero was from 01999 evidently: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/namezero https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/namezero
        airstrike 1y ago

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

xoa 1y ago

>That is not exactly how I remember things. Everyone bought domains from one registrar (was it Network Solutions?) and the cheapest domain started at around $100 By the mid to late 90s (my own earliest domain) yes. But a quick whois on milk.com shows a creation date of 1985-01-01, and that dates back to basically the foundation of DNS at all, RFC 882 & 883 were 1983. Initially it was just the Stanford Research Institute manually maintaining HOSTS.TXT for arpanet. IIRC you like, literally called up Elizbeth Feinler during business hours and just asked and that was it. This is all second hand because I was just a wee lad at that point and wouldn't even discover BBS until well after that heady era! As things got formalized yeah unfortunately some players were able to start grabbing at monopolies, and NetSol began operating the registry for DISA in I think 91 or 92? It was still initially free, but then pretty quickly they started commercializing. But if someone got in truly on the ground floor it was pretty informal, academic and free. Getting a block of IPv4 was pretty easy/free for a long while into the 90s as well.

thomassmith65 1y ago
That explains it, thanks! I wasn't on the net till the '90s

kragen 1y ago

That wasn't the early days of the internet. It was free when I registered ear.org in probably 01994, 24 years after the ARPANET started and 16 years after the first TCP/IP internet nodes. You just had to have a nameserver set up. Shortly after that they started charging, and I hadn't carried out my plans with it, so I let it go, figuring that someone else would make better use of it. They didn't.

muragekibicho 1y ago
I googled ear.org. Complete waste tbh. It's just blank

euroderf 1y ago

> (was it Network Solutions?) rs.internic.net, if memory serves. It stopped redirecting to anything some years ago.