Why should i pay for registering a domain name?

[Manjunath]

First of all, thanks for any help.
If internet doesn't belongs to anyone, why should i pay for registering a domain name? Please help me....

[Gary]

I have the same question

[com]

simple!!!
if its free to register a domain then today you cant even
register fdfkldjslfjsdlkfjsdlkfjsdlkjfkldsjfklsd323432.com

[?]

The same reason people pay more money for better property. If you want a nice name, you deal with a web hosting company to become the legal owner of Internet property, so that a certain address belongs to you and no one else. This will help you build brand identity without someone else copying you.

[Anthony]

While "the internet" doesn't belong to anyone, the modems, servers, routers, fiber-optic lines, and the technology required to make it work still has to get paid for. Some of that belongs to companies, some of it to the non-profit organizations that run the internet and all its associated systems (the web, the email system, the FTP systems, there are MANY) - and all the people that work there need to have somewhere to work & to get paid - so there's technology, buildings, rents and thousands of other expenses that have to be paid for.

Your question is kind of like asking: "if streets don't belong to anyone why do I have to pay taxes?" Um..because although they don't technically belong to a single person or company they still have to be installed, managed and maintained.

It's a small price to pay so the whole SYSTEM can function for everyone's betterment.

A

[Jake]

There are administrative costs involved in insuring that you are the only one in the world using a particular name, as well as making some effort to document the domain owner.

There are been free domain names available, but the easy to get and poorly managed domains have been associated with a high incidence of fraud, bad enough that Google removed all 11 million .cc.co sites from their index.

I am troubled y some domain name speculators who bought up valuable names early in the game, some of which that have resold for millions of dollars.

[Andre]

In the normal world you also have to register a business name ,on the web it is the same.

[Justin]

There are the R's. The registry, the registrar, and the registrant. The registry, such as ICANN, controls their top level domain (tld), such as .com or net. This includes the pricing, who can register it, timeframes, etc.

Then there is the registrar, such as http://webneto.com. Basically a registrar is an accredited vendor that can sell you the namesake, yourdomain.tld.

Then there is you, the registrant. You purchase a domain name from the registrar which gets it from the registry.

I mean sure, you can get to a website if it has a dedicated ip address, http://192.186.241.139 but who would actually remember that big long number to visit your website.