On Fri, Jun 5, 2026 at 4:07 PM Karl Auerbach via At-Large < at-large@icann.org> wrote:
The domain name registration system is a money pump that is a pipeline from the pockets of internet users into the bank accounts of domain name registries/registrars and ICANN. A product for which the actual costs are a few cents per year, at most, are costing users on th eorder of 1000x that cost. Overall, ICANN is costing internet users $billions per year.
No. It is costing *registrants* whatever per year. As a share of marketing expenses (let alone total expenses) domain rental is miniscule. "Sorry, we had to raise our retail price because the cost of our Internet domain increased," said nobody, ever. The Internet end user that has never bought and will never buy a domain -- the billions out there, that ALAC is uniquely charged to speak for -- is utterly unaffected. This is only perceived as a danger within the ICANN bubble. Outside of the bubble this is utter irrelevancy. Registrants are end-users to the same extent that registry employees, ICANN staff and IP lawyers are also end-users. Maybe At-Large should be fighting on behalf of all of them. (Indeed, one could easily make the case that it already does, such is its lack of focus.) Beyond a common need for stability, end-user interests are widely different from those of registrants (especially the speculation and abuse industries). That ALAC maintains wilful oblivion at this divergence of interest has been a prime driver of its lack of focus and subsequent broad failure at the one job ICANN actually directs it to do. The one fallback I would hear frequently as an excuse for ALAC to meddle in issues not otherwise relevant to end users -- such as the cost of domains -- is that the "wrong" answer to some issues would damage end-user trust in the DNS. And yet ...the post that started this thread offered evidence that at least 93% of all people accessing Internet services (and likely more) do so without typing a domain name, and that trend has yet to bottom out. If ALAC's role was to enhance public trust that the DNS (in the form of typed domain names) was fit to task, the usage statistics suggest that effort has not only failed but is likely beyond recovery. Domains will still be necessary, but they will be increasingly hidden from view in a manner that could be handled by a single flat namespace for the whole world. And if IPv6 ever actually gets broadly adopted there will be no need for domains at all. So the "trust" defence for ALAC's mission-creep is long gone. What remains? A $billion/year out of the pockets of Internet users is definitely something
about which the ALAC ought to be concerned - because it is those ALAC members whose pockets are being emptied by these vastly inflated yearly registration costs we must pay.
ALAC members may be affected, because they are for the most part deep inside the bubble, as I was once. But how many of the pockets of *family members of ALAC reps* are being emptied? How many of the people who access the Internet yet have no intention of owning a domain are having their wallets touched? How many people who use the Internet from libraries, office cubicles, refugee camps, telecentres and living rooms are having their wallets emptied by ICANN? A reality check is clearly in order. These are the people on behalf of whom ALAC is tasked to speak. Nobody else. I suggest that the bias of being an ICANN insider for so long has led to an undeserved conceit regarding the importance of its domain-allocation function to the world. Go outside and look around. - Evan