Will domains always cost this much in future?

Question

Minimum you pay for a domain is 10$ / year. Sometimes the cost is upwards to 100 or even 1000s.But I don't get, there is like no cost in owning a domain. It's just an entry in a DNS server. How is even 10$ justifiable for owning a piece of address as recurring cost?

Gustomaximus · Accepted Answer

Do you want them cheap though? This would encourage more squatting.
I find interesting in if Berners-Lee (or whoever) on the invention of the internet had said "I'll own and run the domain registry" they likely could have made themselves the wealthiest person in the work if they wanted.
Given how monopolistic domain registries are and their ability to print money, its going to be an ongoing battle to keep corruption, predatory behaviour and generally lazy excess away.

mooreds · Answer

I'd actually expect one of the big cloud providers to offer cheaper domain hosting as a loss leader sometime in the next few years.I bet there's also a non server cost too, though. All I could find is a $0.18 fee to ICANN: https://www.namecheap.com/legal/domains/icann-fee/

ev1 · Answer

The cost of maintaining massive, at-scale infrastructure to resolve a TLD is not cheap, nor is the 24 hour rotations and all that.

iordachej · Answer

It is a fair question because the number of domain names grew to 326 mil while the maintenance costs it probably way less than $1/domain. And it is definitely not a price set by "market and demand" but rather a monopoly. And tell to people of some 3rd world country that $10 is reasonable.

barlo · Answer

It's like real estate, the prices are set based on the market and demand. The TLD is comparable to location in real estate. Prices will only go up for the major TLDs.

iSloth · Answer

When you consider how critical TDLs are to the operation of the internet, I don't the pricing is at all unreasonable.

Will domains always cost this much in future?

Minimum you pay for a domain is 10$ / year. Sometimes the cost is upwards to 100 or even 1000s.
But I don't get, there is like no cost in owning a domain. It's just an entry in a DNS server. How is even 10$ justifiable for owning a piece of address as recurring cost?

I'd actually expect one of the big cloud providers to offer cheaper domain hosting as a loss leader sometime in the next few years.
I bet there's also a non server cost too, though. All I could find is a $0.18 fee to ICANN: https://www.namecheap.com/legal/domains/icann-fee/

The cost of maintaining massive, at-scale infrastructure to resolve a TLD is not cheap, nor is the 24 hour rotations and all that.

It is a fair question because the number of domain names grew to 326 mil while the maintenance costs it probably way less than $1/domain. And it is definitely not a price set by "market and demand" but rather a monopoly. And tell to people of some 3rd world country that $10 is reasonable.

It's like real estate, the prices are set based on the market and demand. The TLD is comparable to location in real estate. Prices will only go up for the major TLDs.

When you consider how critical TDLs are to the operation of the internet, I don't the pricing is at all unreasonable.