Domain names on the internet were originally free.
Why it is true
In the early days of the web, DARPA and the NSF funded domain registration, and anyone could request an address without paying anything until Network Solutions started charging.
Source: Web Infrastructure
Would you rather be asked first?
This is the reading side of the site, so the answer is in the sentence above — that is the whole point of it. Test yourself works the other way round: the question comes on its own, and the fact and the explanation only appear once you have answered.