$50/year is outrageous and does reflect monopolistic pricing. Real costs are probably <$1 onetime and cents/year. So $49+/year are a tax in disguise from an entitiy that has no right to tax. Emotionally, it feels like extortion. Which is one reason people get mad at InterNIC. It's not the amount. I'd happily pay the same amount to the NSF for being willing to jumpstart the Internet. Dirk On Thu, 20 Mar 1997, Mark Borchers wrote:

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At 7:25 PM -0800 3/19/97, Len Rose wrote:

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So.. how many people here have domains predating the NIC contracts, who politely objected to paying and got their domains put on hold this week?

My objections were not polite, but I paid since I can't afford the service interruption.

Always interesting to see monopoly forces at work...

d/

$50/year seems pretty reasonable for monopolistic pricing.