I'm one of those, but I think the number is higher than that Snoop. I personally know of three guys that I still keep in touch with and not a one of them has ever been to a show, made a single post anywhere, and is not involved in the industry in any capacity other than parking their names and living comfortably. They are just out of sight. The story on DNJournal about Michael Berkens tells how he was unheard of until 2004, yet he owns something like 67,000 domains.
I know one guy that makes $1,500 a day off of one domain that gets 8,000 daily uniques of direct navigation. Another gets 10,000 direct navigation uniques a day off of one domain and sells leads at $10 a pop......he has literally been on permanent vacation for three years now. Nobody has ever heard of them.
If I had to guess I would say it is more around 60 to 80 investors that were out to register as many primo domains as they could. Outside that, there were many others registering one, two, or three domains and such. A lot of registrants were held back by the $100 fees for domains in which there was no form of monetization to support them. Folks could not see how to make their money back. That is why there were not more registrants.
I spoke to a lot of those guys back then and I have never heard a peep out of most of them since.
I think the big rush really came in 1997-1998, and more big time investors really showed up in 1999 and 2000.
Even still, most of us who hand regged domains back then did not get enough of them to make a ton of money. It's those who NEVER stopped regging that really made the money by keeping their blinders on and doing what worked, instead of being distracted with development or other projects. Many of those that went the development route ended up at an dead end alley, but some did well.
The power is all in the domains and that is where it is at.........unless you want to trade your time for development.
.