I would prefer to do business with the largest and most well known company in the industry in which is godaddy, and it was only a matter of time before they moved out of the deep discount domain game. Godaddy would lose money or break even just to gain you as a new customer or keep you as a loyal customer. In the hope you would use their other services.
I usually register 100 at a time so even with their increases and without calling my rep I still got a price of under $9 each. If your domain can't make that fee a year you fail as a webmaster.
