[larrys]

Original and only prior to ICANN.

Original price of a domain: free

Next price point a bit later $100: 2 years min ($50 per year)

Next a bit later $70: 2 years min ($35 per year)

Then came competition and prices dropped.

Little known fact: The first registrars that were accredited had to certify that they had no criminal record (any of the officers) and had to be a corporation and post $100,000 bond as well as other hurdles which were all put in place by Network Solutions to limit competition.

Out of NSI came Verisign which had to erect a "chinese wall" (iirc) in order to separate the "registry" from the "registrar". Verisign of course ended up selling off NS.

[icedchai]

I remember calling up Network Solutions on the phone to pay for a domain, because they had no e-commerce functionality! This was around 1997ish. I had several "free" domains from the 1993-94 era.

[larrys]

Yep and they sent out these paper invoices and gave people credit when they registered. So much profit they could afford to not get paid in many cases once they started to charge for the domains. I also remember (as I'm sure you) some billings going out with ads for branded tshirts with their name on it and some other swag.