Re: Nothing to see here, move on
"Practically any domain name that expires is immediately taken over by domain hoarders looking to monetize it in some way"
Correction. Practically every domain that expires is hijacked by the Registrar utilised by the domain owner, who then resets the DNS to their own and counts the traffic in order to monetise the domain and then auction it off prior to the time limit when they're supposed to release (delete) the domain.
Registrars like doing this because they usually get to keep the domain under their control (which is anti-competitive) and make a LOT more money at auction than they would if it was deleted and re-registered. ICANN, of course, has turned a blind eye to this matter.
