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Because they're GoDaddy, not a crypto-charity. They run a business, nobody has any right to complain that they're not giving away their product free-of-charge. If they want their precious domain so badly then they can compete for it on the free market; that's the spirit of decentralization and deregulation, after all!

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How does having someone else pay for the domain renewal imply charity?

Someone else can pay for the domain, they just have to wait for it to lapse first. This seems perfectly fine to me, and if the original owner agreed to the GoDaddy TOS then I see no reason why they should make a magical fairy dust exception for this case.

I don't see enough information in the article or GoDaddy statement saying the ask was to do it free of charge just they won't allow anyone else do the renewal.

As much as I dislike crypto-crap as the article points out ENS itself would handle this situation fine and GoDaddy reversing its position on this is pretty much the opposite of the argument for centralized services being better able to handle these scenarios.

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