A long time ago I ran a forum/website. Years after it went down, a former member offered me $300 for the domain name. I said "ok" and sold the domain name to them.

Thought that was kind of cool, so I registered like three random domain names I thought were good. And then I forgot about it. That was 2-3 years ago.

Couple of weeks ago I got an email for a domain broker at GoDaddy with an offer of $850 for one of the domains. I said "ok" and transfered the domain.

Registering an unused domain costs like $5 per YEAR. I forgot I had it. I literally did nothing but get a $5 charge once a year. From what I see online, I goofed by not negotiating (850 was the first offer) but from my experience buying unused domain names is just gifting your future self surprise money.

Am I just getting lucky or do domains really get offers this often if you just sit on them?

I figured the demand for domain names would go down over time actually, as more and more of the internet gets funneled through the big tech companies.

What matters these days is your SEO strategy, not your domain name. Nobody types "www.pizza.com" into their web browser except maybe boomers.

Good for you making money though.

brb buying pizza.com rn
see you on the moon *******

IIRC it sold for something like $69 million at the peak of the dotcom bubble. Some nerdy schlub got lucky and struck gold. Lots of parallels with modern crypto mania.