How much? Domain drain, the rising cost of the internet.

I am self employed, running an online business where I sell new and used mountain bike and general cycle parts, repairs and servicing.
The majority of my business comes from my eBay shop, but I also have a separate website on Shopify.
I have two domains, one pointing to each selling platform.
For the past four years, I've been with the same domain hosting company. Each year, my renewal fee has steadily increased. This year, it's even higher.
Ok, so when I set them both up, I knew that the one pointing to my website was a bit more expensive, because it was new, or so I thought.
What I have, is on with a .co.uk extension, and one with a .scot extension. The .scot being Scotland specific.
How wrong I was on the expense reasoning.
So, you can have a .co.uk, or a .com, or even a .net, .london, or almost any other . anything you can think of, relatively cheaply.
However, as soon as it becomes country specific, i.e. .scot or .wales, it multiplies the cost??? Am I missing something???
Surely an extension is an extension is an extension? This seems like an easy way to justify extortion, if you ask me.
Well, to add insult to injury, my current provider couldn't offer me any assistance on lessening the cost, so I asked for a supervisor to call me back. Five days later, and after no call, I proceed to transfer my domain to a new, and cheaper provider.
Now, I'm stuck in limbo land, as my domain had entered renewal stage, and they are refusing to release it for transfer unless I pay, the renewal fee!!! The very reason I was leaving in the first place, and something that could have been avoided, had they called me back when I requested it!
Needless to say, the direct debit has been cancelled. Pretty sure they'll contact me soon...