It’s significantly easier than the process is today. It’s very hard to get a TLD from ICANN as the process consists of a non refundable application fee of 185k with no guarantees you’ll be approved.
> There's no market information I can find about what a TLD will cost on average.
Rather than artificial set costs, the market will dictate this.
> The intention is still for TLD owners to be able to sell access to subdomains, which will enable the exact same rent seeking and exploitation.
People can either register their own TLDs or choose one owned by someone who doesn’t want to gouge people.
> Auctions are blind, so you have almost no guarantees at all -- you'll just have to guess what the market value is.
Yes, and every bidder will have to be serious about wanting to win a domain instead of squatting every last domain.
I appreciate your comments, and understand your concerns. I would be irritated too if I couldn’t find information about how this worked. Unfortunately, all the details (like Bitcoin was at the beginning) are buried in technical papers and developer docs. Luckily, Handshake is a community owned, community run project, and comments like yours help to propel the project forward and bring the explanation that people deserve.
Thank you for your help and questions, and please keep them coming!