Three groups:

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the non-profit in charge of domain names.

Domain sponsors, the organization that agrees to provide the infrastructure for a particular top level domain. For example, .com is sponsored by Verisign.

The registrar you deal with has a license from the sponsor to sell registrations for a top level domain.

You pay the registrar, the registrar pays the sponsor, and the sponsor pays ICANN.

But why is it so expensive? Like 20$ for a .org Domain. Fuck that.

$20 is dirt cheap lol. They go up to the hundreds or even thousands. But those domains I do wonder why they cost so much, like a .xxx domain

It’s really not dirt cheap, it’s pure madness.

I pay ~$100 for the hosting of 100gb, where I can place 20 websites and use 25 email addresses (which have unlimited space I believe). I can also use licensed stuff like divi theme or install Nextcloud and some other apps. That hosting is secure, fast and reliable. Customer support responds within a week at most. All that requires real infrastructure and real work. Every single day.

So pray tell why should the registrar, sponsor and the ICANN get 10, 20 or more % of what I pay for all of that? For one single domain? Every single year. It honestly drives me crazy.

And don’t even get me started on those new TLDs, pure cancer. Not even talking about the obviously shady stuff, but also nice-sounding things like .art 🤮

The Internet is infrastructure. We deserve an at-cost, straightforward process to put our stuff there; no need for leeching gatekeepers and shady middlemen.

Free domains for everyone!

I assume you weren’t being literal about the free domains part, but I agree lol. No reason why one domain should cost $1000 when the other cost $20. It’s the exact same technical setup. Prices should vary if they’re already bought, but that’s about it. That’s why I like my .dev TLD because all of those are a flat $15/yr. Yet something cool for the hip techy youngsters would be like a .io domain, but those are $100+. Like why?