DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

I’d bet most domain owners fantasize about the altavista.com guy or the business.com guy… folks who made a lot of money selling high-exposure domain names. For a short time I thought I’d be one of those guys.

I got an email in the Fall of 1998 from an unremarkable aol.com address, inquiring whether my domain name was for sale. Picturing an adolescent at the other end with a terrible garage band called Debris, I sent back a terse refusal and quickly resumed with my life.

Three or four months later, I received another email from the same address. Unlike before, this message was remarkable, because it mentioned a dollar figure: $3000.

Time passed, emails were exchanged, and ultimately I was offered about $7500. I believe I countered at $12000, figuring to finance a drum studio I wanted to build, but ultimately I decided that I’d rather have the domain for personal use than see it used for some commercial enterprise.

The folks who wanted the domain are still in business, although I can’t say I understand the model.

P.S. I ended up building the drum studio anyway.