There’s something I don’t understand about InfinityFree:
Many have asked for free domains from infinityfree and each time the answer is the same: it is too expensive.
That makes sense, domains cost money, but most of the money goes to the domain registrar and registry, so why can’t infinityfree have its own TLD (maybe .IFF or something?) and hand out domains with that TLD?
It would be financially viable, and from a business sense if you could brand that tld, for example something like .ifastnet
These is one word why that will not happen (2 actually)
Cost and Time
Getting your own TLD is expensive (Thousands of dollars), and time consuming (Multiple years), and there is no guarantee your application will be approved.
And before you can even apply, you have to prove you have the infrastructure to manage it. So that would be more time and dedication to build something that may never be used.
And who is going to pay the people that write the code? Who is going to pay for the application? There is a reason domains are not free.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that applications are closed, and are expected to remain that way until at least 2025.
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On top of that, even if they did, it would go the Freenom route and will be ranked lower in Google search results.
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Sorry, I did not know that.
From a time perspective, your reply makes sense.
But from a cost perspective, I believe it would be possible, considering membership fees are about 4k and servers can’t cost more than 10k a year. That is well in the scope of infinityfree. Even if InfinityFree can’t dish out the money, iFastNet definitely can.
Who knows? Maybe one day infinityfree will start handing out free domains.
Based on this page, the initial registration price of a new TLD is at least $185,000, with more fees added depending on how the process goes, which are often in the tens of thousands too.
https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/global-support/faqs/faqs-en
https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/agb
This page also has a nice table outlining all the costs:
https://www.instra.com/en/new-gtlds/pricing
This article also lists some other prices relevant to operating a domain name:
So in addition to the initial registration, it’s another $6k+ to be a registry, $4k+ to be a registrar, and an ICANN fee of at least $0.25 per domain per year as “bulk pricing”, and much more for the first few extensions.
And that’s just what you pay to ICANN to get the extension. After that, you still need to operate it, which means you need to build a platform for DNS, WHOIS, etc., or buy it off the shelf, which AFAIK also has steep license fees and per-domain fees.
So even if you own the extension, you can’t just give the domains away at no cost to yourself.
I don’t know how deep iFastNet’s pockets are, but I think they could buy their own extension if they wanted it. The problem is just that it makes no economic sense to do so, because giving them away for free would be very expensive, and I can’t imagine why anyone would want to pay for it.
Even though the .ovh extension is very cheap, there are only a handful of them in use by InfinityFree users. Why? Because if you are going to pay for a domain, you don’t want to have another company’s branding on it.
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From the ICANN Page:
The evaluation fee is US$185,000
https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/global-support/faqs/faqs-en
That’s just the “evaluation fee”. 
But, don’t worry, they will find a way to spend your money…
If the fee collection exceeds ICANN’s expenses, the community will be consulted as to how that excess should be used.
"Yeah, the ‘community’ has been consulted and they said I should get a new BMW"
Well, this thread has made me ask myself (several times) how ICANN has not been sued…
Why should ICANN be sued? ICANN is ultimately responsible for all domain name extensions. The entire internet relies on them. They have operating expenses to fulfill their obligations.
Especially if the extension is going to be offered publicly, ICANN wants to make sure that the extension is maintained by a trustworthy entity. This likely is going to involve a lot of paper being pushed between ICANN and the prospective registry to evaluate what kind of extension they want to get, what they do with it, and whether they are capable of maintaining the extension for decades to come. That takes effort, which means it takes money.
The registry should have acquired their own funding to pay for all of this, and ICANN charges their own costs to the registry accordingly. And anyone serious about maintaining a domain extension should be able to cough up these fees.
Organizations having the ability to choose and obtain their own extensions is already unprecedented. I completely understand that they don’t want to turn it into a free-for-all where anyone can get their own domain extension for a pittance.
Proof?
They haven’t asked you. “The community” is likely registries and registrars, not domain owners.
And IMO uniquely talented people should be paid highly. If you’re not paying good salaries, someone else will, and your pool of candidates is going to be people who very specifically want to work for you at the cost of a lot of money to them (which are very few people), or idiots who can’t cut it anywhere else.
I don’t want ICANN to be run by idiots. Which means I need them to pay their staff properly.
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I don’t want ICANN to be run by idiots. Which means I need them to pay their staff properly.
My feeling is that ICANN is already run by idiots. I don’t have a very high opinion of the organization.
It’s not. And the fact that there are no major issues with domain delegation proves that.
Why do you thing they are run my idiots? What’s your evidence?
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My evidence is personal experience in dealing with them (via registrars and directly as a member in their Working Groups). I don’t expect others to share my opinion. I could go on and on about my experiences with them. But, this is probably not the right forum to do that in.
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Domain registers are not staffed by ICANN agents. They are entirely seperate.
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I understand how it works. When dealing with a registrar you are ultimately dealing with ICANN and their policies too. I don’t like them. Just my opinion. You obviously do like them. To each their own.
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ICANN is a big, bureaucratic organization that holds the monopoly on domain extensions. Their responsibility is first and foremost contingency of the existing domain name spectrum. I thought it was also part of the US government, but it seems that ICANN is now entirely governed by their members.
None of those things invite dynamic, innovative, customer first activities. That means ICANN doesn’t seem like a particularly fun organization to deal with. But that’s not really their responsibility anyways.
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