system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: how can sites like godaddy.com sell domains? do they buy them? if so from who?

I mean do they just say "alright this domain is ours, if you want to buy it you need to do so from us" or how does it work?
gpt
they are authorized by ICANN, the organization which controls the domain name system.  They collect and pay a fee on every registration to ICANN, which helps fund the organization.  There are multiple registrars for each TLD (com, net, org, etc) and you can buy a name from any of them, as long as it is available.