"the higher price may be inhibiting squatting"

The high price is a result of the fact that the base cost of the domain is much higher than it is for .com/.net/.org/.info.

Here is the wholesale .io pricing which is based on volume (doesn't work that way for .com/.net/.org/.info)

http://www.nic.io/join.html

So for example nic.io regular price is $60 US.

Even at the top bracket the best a registrar could do is $30 per domain.

This is compared to around $8.xx for .com that a registrar pays (we are a registrar).

Where do you see the nic.io price is $60? I just paid $96 us dollars last week from the site. Nic.io prices are in pounds.

Your right. I missed the pound saw it for EU but missed it on non eu.

Exactly this. I was able to easily snag a two letter domain name (iz.io) before thanks to the high prices. Eventually let it expire when that startup had run its course though.

Actually, this is something I've found too, and people seem a little bit more motivated to actually use the domains they've bought. Plus I love this extension for web apps that are used by the tech community because they actually understand understand generic ccTLDs.