I have to imagine they coded in some stop-gap like 3 domains per unique visitor or something, otherwise even legitimate window shoppers could ruin them.
That said, if anyone has a bot net they're not using...
There’s likely an expiry on any limit they have since they are probably more interested in people who keep coming back to look for new domains. Just set a long schedule of a month plus some randomness and do a burst of searches. Slow going but with enough accounts…
This is a random Reddit post why is everyone treating it as 'news' or even correct?
Because, unfortunately, this is where we are at. We can't trust registrars to act in good faith. Lots of people have assumed that Namecheap was above the fray, but that assumption can easily be false. With competition from cloud providers who offer domains at wholesale prices, and free DNS as well, Namecheap may be resorting to less than savory tactics to keep themselves alive.
Absolutely not, we don't front run domains, never have and never will.