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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 howe
by 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 agoAds on the internet were mostly prohibited during the early-internet period due to the NSFNET AUP.
- neom 1y agoI 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 agoYes, 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 agoApparently 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 agoApparently, 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 agoThat'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 agoYeah, 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 agoThe leading zero that only applies to pre Y2K years sets my teeth on edge, so mission accomplished there
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]