Most of the costs to provide digital services are salaries for the employees. You need engineers, support staff, lawyers, and some supporting roles like finance and security/compliance to meet the legal and contractual obligations of the service.
I'm curious. That's the class action from US residents. Would this thing effectively force Verisign to overcharge those purchasing .com domains from outside of the US (while lowering the price for those inside the US)?
The real class action case is that the huge stream of money flow is not cashing in Europe at all, not a cent. Who the f owns the infrastructure? If I buy a domain from and in Europe the money got to stay in Europe.
The real class action is the issue of a fascist government declaring antifascism terrorism, making all bank transfers void, seizing their domain (.org). They could do the same to ICC and ICJ, or anyone they dislike really. Most root-servers are located in America, too.
That some company is behind .com or some TLD and earning some money with that is a nothingburger.
The internet needs an independent tld that’s not controlled by any entity, I see a lot of people over selling self hosting as the ultimate freedom, and while it’s great and better than relying in saas, you are still under the mercy of some entity and have a single point of failure in your setup. And before someone chimes in, onion aren’t practical.
to maintain a few hundred bytes in a database small enough to be served from a computer from the 90s?
That some company is behind .com or some TLD and earning some money with that is a nothingburger.