[mkuhn]

I am glad that domains are not $0.18. Imagine how many domains would be available if domains were that cheap...

I gather that at that price domain grabbers would just start to register everything (within reason). Then we would deal with some kind of secondary market where domains would be priced by their attractiveness and not sold as a common good (this obviously is already the case for many good domains).

[icedchai]

Before 1997, they used to be free.

[marincounty]

Yea, but what if they put a limit of, say 4 per IP address? If you wanted a new domain, you would need to forfeit one? Or, even go farther, and tie a name and social security number to the domain in order to keep track?

[mkingston]

Unless I'm missing some greater context, certainly your latter suggestion is completely impossible in a global context.