Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a last name that's extremely uncommon. MyLastName.com was available for many, many years. I thought about buying it a few times in the last 20 or so years but I don't have any use for it so I didn't. Two years ago it was bought by a domain squatter who was probably iterating through the white pages. Now that I can't have it I want it (I guess human nature) but they are asking like $2k for it. It seems somehow…
mylastname.com was already gone in 1999, so I had to settle for mylastname.net. Too bad it didn't occur to me to secure it in 1996. If Tucows is willing to sell they certainly aren't publicizing it.
After the gTLD explosion I thought I could finally snare a decent one but they all went into the $1000+ category immediately, excepting niches like cook.republican, cook.accountant etc.
Luckily some did eventually come down, I managed to get cook.run for a more reasonable $50/year