On September 14, 1995, the open, idealized commons of the early internet officially went commercial when Network Solutions began charging for domain name registrations. Backed by the National Science Foundation, which had previously footed the bill, the company instituted a $100 fee for two years of ownership on .com, .net, and .org addresses. To many early cyber-pioneers, this felt like an eviction from an egalitarian digital frontier; to venture capitalists, it sounded the opening bell of the dot-com gold rush. Monetizing web addresses abruptly turned abstract strings of text into prime digital real estate, sparking the frenzied era of domain squatting and high-stakes corporate rebranding. In a single bureaucratic stroke, cyberspace shifted from an academic playground to the global marketplace we inhabit today.