I came into the domaining world a bit late, and I only got to register my first one February last year. It was for my personal site, but later on I realized I didn't like the name, so I let it expire and went on to register a new one for my personal site. How about you, when did you have your first?
I forgot when it was but I started operating my first site in '96 or '97. It was pretty popular and got a lot of natural backlinks but I just didn't have the time to update it so I quit one day and let it expire. If I kept it up, I imagine it would probably be a nice site to have today. Too bad. Now someone else owns the domain. I picked up on the Internet pretty early. I bought a 14.4k modem (I don't exactly remember the reason why) for like $150 and signed on.
I registered my first couple in late 2003 I think, although I've now found myself with twenty one domains of my own and controlling another six or so for other people.
i've ordered an extra 4 in the past month so.... i dunno 8 bucks a year is pretty cheap to me, and if i think of a good name/concept i'll go register it...building the site is a different matter
My first was June 1998, and my the end of 2000, I had 75+ domains. Starting 2003, we have stopped counting.
Registered my first domain about 1yr ago. Had no clue of what I was doing. Since then I've registered another, much more profitable one. It's been fun.