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Yes you can have your own domain.
To acquire the .com domain name you are looking for, contact the seller directly. All good domain names have already been registered at some point, but there are quality .com domain names out there that are not in use and no longer registered to an active paying lessee. However, they may be held in a limbo status wherein they are not available for purchase, but not currently registered to anyone.
Going through a domain brokering service is usually not the best option. Here is an example of why that is: Domain brokers do a terrible job of connecting buyers with sellers
Domain registrars heavily inflated the potential value of .com domain names during the height of the .com bubble around the year 2000 when it cost $7 to register a domain name for a lease period of one year through GoDaddy and there were plenty of good ones available. The annual registration fee now costs about $30/yr. $10 of that is an annual fee for privacy protection which is required because some domain registrars sell your personal information or it is easily retrieved via online registration databases and you will be bombarded by people selling stuff from within an hour of registration purchase if you decline this option.
I found the info for an expired domain name I was trying to purchase at one time several years ago. I did a search through a registration site and saw the name was taken, then found the contact number for the registrar online. This particular .com domain name had been expired for almost a year. I called to the number to find out why I could not register the .com because nobody had the lease on it at that point. I had purchased domain names that had been registered and expired in the past without a problem. (Note: this would be a good time to mention that it is never a good idea to pay for domain name backordering services if those are even allowed to exist anymore) The listed registrar phone number went to a private number that could have been the previous lease holder on the domain, but it was definitely not a business and the person on the other end of the phone just hung up when I explained why I was calling.
Many people focus on their social media accounts and that is understandable given the time and energy dedicated to platform participation whether it be for business or entertainment. However, as we have seen with the continued decline of legacy media corporations over the last year and a half, it should be obvious why securing a .com domain name is important. Legacy media brands rushed to the high participation high traffic social media platforms and it worked well for over a decade. Now, most people navigate their daily digital streams by tapping and scrolling, not typing in .com domain names by hand. When those information feeds in your stream change, whether it is your choice or not, many people barely notice because that void is replaced by something else.
What will be the next category of business or entertainment to receive less emphasis or become deprioritized or whatever other word big tech social media platforms use to explain why they are controlling what they want or allow you to see?
There seems to be a social media influencer bubble right now. This makes sense if you are selling advertising. The more original content creator digital billboards you have, the more places there are to sell advertising. This is until influencers realize that there are hundreds of other people talking about the same topics and products that they are and that their own personally developed influencer brand content belongs to the platform, sort of. It becomes part of their overall content catalog. Why not also make sure you have all of your content at a website with a recognizable domain name where the brand that is you exists independently controlled by you.
I am constantly surprised to see musical artists and bands who have written and recorded really good tracks and even entire albums and they have no website. It is difficult to find them outside of a platform. If nothing else, have a website that lists all of your social channels so that anyone can find you, not just the people on Soundcloud and Spotify.
The purpose of this is to explain that having your own .com presence is more valuable now than ever, because, like you, it is the only digital asset that is truly unique.
They inflated the price of .com names when they were cheap and plentiful and now they are telling people that they are not worth anything but are extremely difficult to get and the price keeps going up. Hmmm.
Your brand is not your handle. Your handle is just one channel where your audience can find you. Be the master of your own domain. The only way to do that is with your own .com name.
