Was there some sort of assurance that nothing was going to happen when the contract expired, and this expectation was changed? Freenom hasn’t been registering domains since Jan 1.
It’s seeming a little odd to me that this is catching people with their pants down.
The “a capitalist economy” bit is the very important distinction. Communist states share most or all of the other traits with fascism. But so do Feudal countries with merchantilist economies, modern dictatorships without government-driven economy, and all other strongly authoritarian systems eventually.