I work at Namecheap and we've been vocal about ICANN's decision to lift .org price caps. Happy to answer any questions from an industry-insider perspective.
P.S. Only upvoting for exposure, not endorsing the acquisition.
ICANN has made several decisions in past that are mind-boggling and definitely not in public good. I wonder who runs this org? How someone gets into leadership in there? It surprises me to no end that we are being forced to pay $$ perpetually just to add a little record in their database. There should be nearly no cost to this and over the time I've become very certain that there is quite a bit of bribery going on in ICANN who approve raising prices instead of slashing them. What are the avenues to legally disrupt/expose/fix ICANN?
Are there any TLDs where the management are elected by the domain holders ? The real world analogy I can think is HOA where the association (body corporate) is run by trustees/directors who are elected by the property owners. The association is incorporated as a non profit.
The registries control the costs for us so with no price caps, .org (which sets the precedent for .com) could increase the prices on new registrations and renewals as much as they want basically.
P.S. Only upvoting for exposure, not endorsing the acquisition.