Robotz.com was established in 1997 and for years provided email and web hosting services for customers in the United States and Australia. Robotz.com also offered dial-up Internet access. That service ended with the rise of broadband. Local phone companies controlled broadband access and refused to allow competitors on their infrastructure, with the sole exception of cable television companies that used a completely separate network. Neither side permitted other providers to compete, and customers no longer wanted the slower speeds of dial-up.

During the years when personal homepages were popular, Robotz.com offered page promotion and contests that customers could enter, such as Homepage of the Week. As Internet culture moved away from personal homepages toward web logs, also known as blogs, Robotz.com began offering various content management systems such as WordPress. Today WordPress itself is complete rubbish.

Market changes eventually made traditional web hosting no longer viable as a business model. Free hosting options and the decline of personal homepage and blog culture reduced demand. Robotz.com shifted from running an independent network of servers to a minimalist group of hosted sites.

Today the Robotz.com domain supports a number of functions, including CRM tools, MediaWiki sites, and custom software. The main landing page is no longer active beyond the content currently shown, yet the domain remains in use for several activities and is not available for purchase. That is not to say an obscene offer would be rejected, but as a general rule the domain is not for sale.

Robotz.com still provides hosting for some nonprofit organizations and clubs. The domain has existed for a long time and carries substantial history behind the name. That history may be shared in an article at some point.

In the 1990s, domain name registration worked differently than it does now. Network Solutions held a complete monopoly on .com registrations. Robotz.com was registered with Network Solutions for $100, the standard fee at the time for a two-year term. Annual renewals cost substantially more than they do today. On the positive side, many good English-word .com names were still available. The owner of Robotz.com was able to buy a three-letter domain name directly from Network Solutions.

In the late 1990s the U.S. Department of Commerce and the newly formed Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) ended Network Solutions' exclusive right to register .com, .net, and .org names. Competition among registrars began in 1999. This opened the market and made domain registration far more affordable for average individuals. Domain names began to be acquired, hoarded, and traded. Robotz.com stayed with its original owner, where it remains today.

Times have changed over the decades, yet Robotz.com is still online. It is no longer an independent operation running on private equipment, but it continues under the care of the original owner and is actively used for the purposes noted earlier. Looking ahead, will the prominence of the .com top-level domain remain dominant, or will top-level domains eventually open so that anyone can register any extension? No technical barrier prevents that change, yet existing practices continue to prevail. The future will be interesting.