I had about 60 or so domains. I would get one every time I heard a catchy word. I've been letting some of them expire, but I did find a good use for about a dozen of them. I pointed them to fastmail for family members to use in combination with aliases so that when a company sells their email address or gets owned, they just simply delete the alias. Some of them still come in handy for little projects now and again, but I will probably whittle the list down to a dozen that I hold on to. This is of course just my preference. People should do whatever works for them and suits their needs or wants. If you are going to let a domain expire, check its value first.
This is SUCH good advice. In college and for a few years out of college I was terrible about doing this. I had easily 30+ domains I carried for a few years (some I renewed, some I replaced with other "ideas"). After thinking about it a lot I realised that spending money makes me feel like I've accomplished something without having to really do any "work". I had to break the same habit when it came to buying things in general, I used "retail therapy" to make myself feel better and feel like I was solving a problem. Oftentimes buying that thing was not necessary for the change I really wanted to make but it made me feel like I was making an effort when really I was just throwing away money.<p>Domain names are the same way, I would purchase a domain for a project I dreamed up in my head thinking that buying the domain would motivate me to work on the project (wouldn't want to throw away that money after all right? right?). All it did was give me the endorphin rush I desired and then let me go back to doing whatever I was doing (which was not working on said project).
Great reasoned argument. I have been paying annual renewals of 50 domains for over 15 years. I fall into the sunk cost fallacy every time they come up for renewal. Anyone want to buy a great domain?