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Comment by geocrasher | Hacker News Reader

Shocked over a 54 cent increase? Remember: Domains used to cost $75/year.

.com domains NEVER cost $75/year. In the 90s bad (but popular) registrars like Network Solutions got away with massive markups.

Registrars are still allowed to add a markup, just there is so much competition that doesn't really happen any more.

EDIT: Correction, Network Solution was the _only_ registrar between 1995 and 1998. For three years they charged insane amounts, $100 for 2yrs. Before that it was free, and after that it was about $8 from other registrars.

Huh—my first domain name shows it was registered in 2002, and I was sure NetSol was the only option at the time, as in, not that I looked and didn't find others, but I looked and the answer was a definitive "NetSol is the only one". IIRC I paid around $70. My recollection was that all the new, cheap registers didn't come about until later rule changes, maybe a couple years later, not all the way back in '98. I'm also pretty sure I remember reading about the change on Slashdot, and I don't think I was reading it yet before 2000.

[EDIT] I must have paid for two years (maybe first time registrations had to be two years, at the time?) at a $34.99/yr rate, to get that $70 figure I had in my head, in 2002.

I've noticed a lot of registrars try this where they select a multi-year option as default.

I'm sure Directnic was around in 1998 offering .com domain names for $15/year. Unfortunately archive.org only goes back to 2000 [1].

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20000510064309/http://www.direct...

I've checked my records, I registered domains at the start of January 2002 through OpenSRS for my customers. OpenSRS have celebrated 20 years according to their blog.

I don't remember the exact year from handoff from NetSol to ICANN approved registars, but some of that work started in September 1998. I found some sources that state sometime during 2001 was when NetSol had it's exclusive registrar service ended.

In the German room there are still hosters that get away with monthly domain costs that often are like half of the actual yearly cost. Per month.

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