There are some people that asked a similar question but I don’t want who gets raw revenue, but who gets the probably obscene margins (profits thus) from paying $10-20/year for linking a piece of string and an IP address?

    •  birdcat   ( @birdcat@lemmy.ml ) 
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      41 year ago

      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!