It actually takes a bit to keep this running with rock solid reliability. For example when a registrar calls Verisign they get replies almost in an instant as there are people sitting by 24x7 to handle and clear up any issues that come up. And the uptime, with the exception of planned maintenance (which can run from 45 minutes to several hours) is near 100%. This isn't like calling godaddy or fighting with Google or Facebook if you have a problem.

Does Verisign make money? Yes. Do they have a right to make a profit? Yes. How much? Not up to the public to decide this it's up to their customers. Their customers are registrars, not the public. Their contract, fairly negotiated is with ICANN (and their registrars).

What's interesting is that you don't hear much about the price from large portfolio owners but from people who seem to think that nobody has a right to make a profit and all costs need to be driven out of any existing system which most certainly needs to be disrupted.