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How come companies can afford to provide free web hosting but not free .com domains?

Saying that web hosting usually costs 5 dollars a month, and domains usually cost 5-10 dollars A YEAR, how come people don't provide free domains? Hey David, thanks for the very long answer but I already use 1 and 1 host. This is just a question I was wondering.

Public Comments

1. While providing free hosting, the companies can make profit from the ads displayed on the websites. On the other hand, companies cant make profit by providing free dot com domains as far as I know.
2. Web hosting is easier to provide for free since the space that is provisioned on the web server may already be paid for. But for a domain name, they cost the host per domain just as they cost you and I, so they would lose a lot of profit trying to provide free .com names.
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