domains Mike Berkens said this 8 years ago about domain investing, is it still true?

It's investing. If you check Mike's sales, most of the domains were acquired some years back before been sold.

It does take a lot of skill and patience, taking crap shoot or a lottery type mentality approach will be a huge failure every time as proven through the years. following the herd has a short life existence as well. Knowledge/Skill IMO

It depends on TLD as well...
With some TLDs - luck only.

I disagree to certain extent......

This can be a hobby and still be treated seriously......

I take time to read up on niches I find interesting, research keywords, keep up to date with industry news and sales, plan for the long term, improving my definition on what makes a good domain (I think), keep up to date records etc etc etc

I do the above and still look upon this as a hobby, does this mean I am doing the lottery every time I register or buy a name because it is a hobby? NO

When I first started I had this outlook and 90% of those original names have been dropped now, I have started renewing names that I will be happy to keep for the long haul, some will still be dropped after 12 months as you can't get it right all the time.

Dismissing everyone who calls themselves a hobbyist is really not understanding the work that individual puts into their "hobby"

Chess is a hobby for me but I put in hours a week learning openings, end games, tactics and watching games. I take it seriously because I am passionate about it - same as domaning

As your level of patience grows.

I agree with @MrAcidic that you can treat it like a hobby and still work hard. I know lots of artists who in a sense do it out of love of art and as a hobby, as opposed to really expecting to make much money, but they work very hard and have passion for it.

I think the advice is still very relevant. I particularly liked:

Thank you very much for sharing this, @equity78!

Bob

Same here, but now am in full time. After long pain, I finally finish TODAY listing my domains in my Market Place. The work just began

If you buy low enough, it's a good investing strategy, if you overbid and overpay, it's speculation. You should do your market analysis to get a fair value for a domain, that is what you can sell it for if nobody wants it bad. The fair value is usually nowhere ( much less) what you can sell for when there is high demand or someone with heavy pockets is interested. A domain's subjective value lies on who wants it from you, how bad do they want it and how big their budget is.

Thankyou for allowing me joning