Comment by ademarre

You misunderstand. Domains must not be free, and domain cost isn't the problem. Nonprofit registrar != free domains.

The problem is the horrible user experience of registrars like Godaddy. I'd rather give my money to a nonprofit that isn't confusing non-technical website owners into buying products they don't need.

The registrar landscape is better now with Gandi, but still I'd rather pay a fully transparent nonprofit registrar if one existed.