Thanks for the feedback. I'll fire up Parallels and do some tweaking on the font type. I do all my work on a Mac so I typically just test with IE on Windows and test the other browsers on OS X.
I'm actually a reseller of Key-Systems. If I go out of business you'll still have access to all of your domains and be able to manage them through Key-Systems and RrpProxy.net (http://key-systems.net/). They also run Domain Discount 24 (http://dd24.com/) and are a fairly large registrar.
Good question. I did not mean to be misleading. I was referring to having an initial yearly fee of, say, $8.99 but hidden in the fine print a renewal fee of $12.99. I can't control the yearly rate increases but I'll always just have one fee regardless of transfer, renewal, or initial registration. Sorry for the confusion.
The goal was to make a domain name registration and management system I'd like to use. That means no upselling and no charging for standard services like whois privacy, url forwarding, and email forwarding.
I also made it easy to set your domain names to not auto-renew and to transfer away your name.
There is also no magical price change the second year or hidden fees that show up at the end of the purchasing process.
It has some decent traction so far and the current users seem to really like it. I'm currently working on an API and iPhone app to try to make it even more appealing.
In regards to how much I would need to stay in business: The current cost to keep the site up is just under $200 per month. My revenues are already above that. Obviously my credit card transaction fees need to be deducted and the registrar I resell through will get a cut. I plan on paying that out of pocket if it makes no money because I enjoy using it for my domain portfolio and I think my friends do too.
In regards to what would happen if it did shutdown (I obviously would prefer this not to happen): The registrar I resell through (Key-Systems) would then be the registrar you would use. They are among the 15 largest registrars (according to ICANN) and manage more than 3 million domains.
I hope that answers some of your questions. I do agree that with something like domain registrations you have to be very careful.