Where I live, the most common payment method for such services is direct debit from your bank account, where the details never change unless you switch banks; and in the rare event that you switch, you can make use of a service that banks are legally required to provide for transferring debit mandates to the new account. I bought my first domain about twenty years ago and never had to change anything regarding payment.
A lot of people live paycheck to paycheck. I’d wager even more people on average would lose their domains with this approach either by forgetting to or being unable to put the necessary funds in their account, and having the payment declined.
Losing your entire online identity because you didn’t pay on time is an absolute show stopper for an enormous number of people.
Most people are not tech people. They do not know or car, or even care to know, about the details and importance of maintaining and protecting an online identity. They won’t remember to update payment details until things start failing. They won’t check their email frequently enough to notice before this happens. They will ignore text messages, either assuming they’re scams, spam, or unimportant.
You’re in the US, presumably? Is it really that common there for people to overdraw their account to the extent that direct debit in the $10 range would fail? That would be a very rare occurrence here. And you wouldn’t immediately lose your domain just because the payment failed once. It would be a much longer process.
People also have a mobile phone number with a plan they have to pay for. I don’t see why a domain should be any different, and it isn’t actually that different in my country.
5% of American households have no bank account at all - either because fees are too high or because they have cashed bad checks or failed to pay bank fees in the past and are now refused an account.
Another 25% had their bank balance go below zero in the past year. And that number is worse than it sounds, because it doesn't include people who have selected to have transactions fail instead of put their balance below zero.
https://www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/research-repor...
