It’s an addictive drug. Like Dennis Leary said, you could name them Death and make the packaging black with a skull and crossbones and people would buy two at a time.

As others mentioned, Verisign administers the .com space and they’re raising prices. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/09/website-domain-more-expensive-00023524

I do like to keep track of the budget gTLD renewal prices at tld-list.com and use that for my personal use. I have an offbeat domain I registered for 10 years for something like $25 a few years ago.