The domain registrar pays US$6.00 maximum each year to VeriSign plus US$0.25
as an administration fee to ICANN for .com names. VeriSign is the registry
manager for the gTLD market (generic top-level domain). They will take a loss
on domain sales, but... read this from a domain insider:
http://www.domainwarning.com/.
Tucows and Godaddy have treated us well, but the marketing from GD is
somewhat annoying. Plan to try out Gandi.net this week. They seem to like
freedom and are brutal honesty. Les appellerai demain sur les domaines!
Best wishes. Do good things!