Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah... my .com renewal lapsed due to an expired credit card, and it was snatched before I realized it. They've always wanted $2k for it. Even if I was OK paying in principle, that's too much for a personal blog that gets one post every 4 years.
I had a domain that I was just using for e-mail, just to catch everything and not link directly to me. Then lent the A record to host an archive of something, which got linked around a load of places. So had "SEO Value" suddenly. Did the same, the renewal failed because the card had expired, and now squatters have been sat on it, probably getting all my spam and resetting my credentials on random websites for the las…
Lesson for everyone else reading this is to not let your domains lapese. You can also pay ahead (up to 10 years for most registries) so there really is no excuse - and that tends to provide some protection from price hikes as well, or at least give you more time to react.