I don't have a source handy, but there was an article circulating a few years ago describing the "evilness" of complication. The contention was that businesses that work hard to complicate situations for consumers are fundamentally "bad" and that the long-term win lies with simplifying complexity (the author made a distinction between complexity and complication - i.e. math is complex and best expressed in the least complicated manner.)
Anyways, I just wanted to point out that not everyone is working a variation of "the bait and switch" :)
/r
I'm pretty sure that's a "cheap registrar".
With namecheap, they list as $10, but you can get the price even lower and use the code "SOPASucks"*
* Conditions apply. Conditions also apply.
All of these "conditions apply" kind of makes the point of my argument. For every $8.95 cert offer, there is another offer where you get a free cert by purchasing the domain name, or by transferring from some competitor, or by renewing some existing domain.
It is a true confusopoly. These schemes to extract more money from consumers may be slightly more or less scammy, but ALL domain registrars engage in these practices.
The sad part of it is that in the end, I don't know if I'd be better off being scammed into paying an extra $4/month for some service I'm not using, or being "socially conscious" and paying more to a company that does not pull these tricks, but that can only keep itself in business by charging higher prices.
(Namecheap actually does give you a free $8.95-level SSL cert with a domain registration.)
1) Go to namecheap home-page.
2) Try to find out how much it costs to *renew* a domain after the first year.
3) Realize that they are also not the masters of clarity and transparency.
After all that, people just do what you say and "stick with someone who doesn't act like a dick to them". But that doesn't mean that the general confusion isn't there. Quite the contrary: it is working so well that you don't even notice it.
What I want is a domain registrar version of http://prgmr.com/xen/
As much as people are talking about GoDaddy and namecheap lately, no one managed to find a cheap registrar. Consumer opinion will always mention quality of support or the political stance of one company or another, but not one single soul managed to show me one registrar that has low prices for domain registration and renewal and SSL certificates. It's always one or the other.