I think the thing to keep in mind is that while we tell ourselves that speculative strategies are calculated risks, we seldom have all the information necessary to do a complete analysis - especially when there are so many variables involving unknowns in the future.
Add to that the (IMO sometimes very powerful) group reinforcement that we get from these threads - and the compulsive, acquisitive instinct to grab some "oooh shiny" pieces before someone else does, especially in a buyout.
Sometimes it works out nicely. But certainly not always, and not every time - even for the eventual "winner" categories such as LLLL.com ... People have lost money with LLLL.com over the years. I guess they "weren't wrong just early" as is often heard from traders in the financial markets.
Keep in mind of course that the "contrary analysis" as well is not based on complete information - though often speaks from long and painful experience that one would dismiss at their own peril.
I have a hunch that LLLL.net are a reasonable bet at this point. But looking at CCC.net - there's another thing to compare with as we get more into the "anti-premium" dimension. That's something I'd like to understand better too - not just always looking at LLLL.com as the beacon to follow here, but also considering the aspects of .net that may keep it below "critical mass" ...
So, it really is a gamble, not at all a sure thing. And newbies expecting to be able to flip their picks in a week or a month may find themselves on the short end of the registration fees when the rent is due.
When considering a gamble, consider the odds and the possible payoff. Then also might want to look around to see if there are better bets, and think twice about whether you really can afford to buy yet another lottery ticket, poker chip, or "rare fine art collectable" trading card.
If you can afford it - and it's fun to pick a nice one out, and potentially profitable, then good enough. But if you're just doing it with the expectation of "guaranteed 100% profit next month" - sooner or later you're going to get an expensive education. Well - actually, might be still pretty cheap tuition compared to the cost of many other lessons life can teach in the school of hard knocks (which is what I said about LLLL.com when that was still a tossup for me, so go figure ...)
Incomplete information is one of the things that makes financial markets interesting to study. There is a big cult of "technical analysis" which looks only at price action, claiming that all the available information that "fundamental" analysis would provide (ie company finances, business prospects, competitive environment, and ultimately earnings) is already substantially "priced into" the cumulative bids and asks and volume of trades in the market. So they just look at this action with a mind-boggling array of obscure tea-leaf reading methods (Fibonacci ratios and so on ...)
And that's fun stuff too, I'm not putting it down. (I tend to look at it through the lens of "behavioral economics" which fits in more with the technical school of thought than the fundamentalist - also dealing with another fact of human nature that the "efficient market" theories neglect to consider - that is, people do not make entirely "rational" decisions - there is a strong instinct toward risk aversion which gets distorted in different contexts, ie high stakes or penny-ante. And on and on and on ...)
So what's my point?
Who knows!
I think best approach to LLLL.net at this "post-premium" stage in the market is to approach it with the idea in mind that you yourself may be the "collector" of these domains for quite some time. If you buy the few that speak to you saying "no way will I sell it for less than $xx because I like it too much" ... then chances are reasonable that at the very least another collector may someday see it the same way, and perhaps even offer you $xx++ for one of those rare pieces.
But it can get to be an expensive hobby even if you really "know" what you are doing in this market .... No one truly knows how it will work out next month, next year, or next decade. You pays your money and you takes your chances!
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