The notion of "regulatory capture" mischaracterises the history, IMHO. I think that term implies that the regulation is based in some actual government-backed

The notion of "regulatory capture" mischaracterises the history, IMHO. I think that term implies that the regulation is based in some actual government-backed authority acting in the public interest. But ICANN has no actual source of legal "authority" over domain names. Their position is maintained only through the willingness of authors of DNS software and network adminstrators to use the ICANN root.zone. What keeps the world's DNS resolvers pointing to ICANN's approved root zone is simply consensus. Unchanged default settings and the tacit agreement of network administrators. It could be that the author is currently maintaining a significant number of regsitrations, possibly doing a little "domaining" in his spare time. If so, that is motivation to protest any increase in prices. The truth is that domain names should cost almost nothing. The real cost of maintaining a domain name is not even close to what is being charged by registrars. If I am not mistaken, the story behind the privatisation and commercialisation of domain name registrations can be traced back to President Clinton, certain Clinton staff members/advisors, and an ICANN-precursor, called "NewCo" at the time. "NewCo" is shorthand among lawyers for setting up a private company. I think "regulatory capture" is a misleading way to describe the very old problems with ICANN and its conflicts of interest. There is no governmental regulatory agency acting in the public interest to "capture". ICANN, both the idea and implementation, is a private company. Adept at fending off any legal challenges.