Hello fellow Lemmings! I hope this is the right place to ask this. I don’t understand how web domains work. Let’s say I want to buy the domain “abcdefghi.net”. I can go to a domain provider like haruba or godaddy and just buy it. but how can they, a private, sell me these domains? I’m not talking about the hosting, but just the domain. where do they register this domain I’m buying? isn’t it possible to register it myself instead of paying these services to do it for me?
It’s all managed through ICANN (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers)
https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/register-domain-name-2017-06-20-en
Are more simple explanation to your question: https://www.thesitewizard.com/domain/register-with-icann-sans-middlemen.shtml