As the founder of a small marketing firm, a large part of our role is web design & hosting - along with domain registration.
Currently, .org TLD has caps on what Afilias can be charging to the registrar. Let’s keep in mind that Afilias has a monopoly over the .org TLD. That hasn’t had an impact on consumers so much up to this point, since ICANN has been keeping them in check with the mentioned price caps.
If the cap is removed, you’re effectively giving the power for one company to control the entire market.
If Afilias wants to increase their pricing, it creates a chain reaction of artificial inflation. The domain registrars start charging more, they pass that cost along to their customers (domain owners), then they pass that along to their customers.
Lots of people with .org domains are non-profits - they should be focusing their budget at their core mission, rather than worrying about domain price hikes.
ICANN needs to step in, and protect owners of these domain names.