ICANN manages the fees so they can make them whatever they want...no?
If $7 is expensive for someone...they can just get a non .com name. Your blog that gets 5 visitors a day, will work just as fine on a .net. Same for businesses. If you can't afford $240/yr then you are probably not serious enough about your venture. So your third world startups can just stick on their country's domain name...or get a .net or do the whole start.ups type name.
Yes I overdid it with the TB...but that's because I usually get it for 2 people.
ICANN doesn't do anything themselves, it's all done by registrties, udrp providers, etc. ICANN is also supposed to be a non-profit, raising the fees for an arbitrary purpose serves who?
> Yes I overdid it with the TB...but that's because I usually get it for 2 people.
Where do you live and who do you eat with? I can feed like 8 people for $20 at Taco Bell here in Columbus, OH
ICANN doesn't solve domain disputes at all. That is handled through UDRP providers (WIPO, NAF, etc).
ICANN doesn't manage any of the registries themselves, they give the contracts in some meaningless manner (different problem, shitty organization ICANN is).
You eat some of the biggest taco bell meals I have ever heard of. As others stated, you have a very rich mindset. Even 7$ is expensive for some people, I've met startups in third world countries that have trouble paying $20/month for hosting (that can be 20% of a monthly salary or more!)