As others said, this post is wrong. I’m another owner of first.last/firstlast since 2004. There was never a period where Google got the dots wrong.

People will forget their middle initial in their email (or others won’t notice it), or they’ll add firstlast as a recovery email or something.

Receiving other people’s email never stops being funny to me. Some of them are grumpy about it (especially the one who paid for and distributed “thousands” of poorly designed business cards.)

More have a sense of humor, and I’ve enjoyed getting to know a few of the other guys with the name over the years.