It might be interesting, justpassing, to see their latest budget so we can "appreciate" exactly where the money is going . . and in what amounts. Why don't you hunt that information down and post a link to it and/or a summary?

Sometimes I view the various budgets in the domain space as tilted, significantly, towards travel, dining and social activities . . backed up by a fair bit of bureaucracy that reminds me of the unspoken "full employment for family and friends" policy/practices that I've seen - up close and personally - in the world of politics and politically-connected-hiring-for-government-jobs.

Don't get me wrong. There IS important work to be done. I'm just rarely convinced there's that much work and that we're always getting the best bang for our bucks. In this case, raising domain renewal rates by say $2.00 (over 4 years) is padding things for their future raises . . and increased travel expenses . . at a time when technology and economies of scale should be driving costs down.

I noticed Uniregistry has already threatened huge price increases for .com in a recent email and requiring a membership for lower rates.