[baligad]

> the real answer to this

Alternatively, I like the concept of Tor onion services, where the "domains" are acquired in a permissionless fashion. Names are just randomly generated ed25519 strings so there's no squatting and your address never expires. If you want a vanity domain, you just commit compute time to brute force something human-readable. [1] The obvious drawback is that you have to be a Tor client, but if you manage your own DNS, you could use Tor's DNSPort mode as a kind of forwarding target for non-Tor clients on your lan. [2]

1: https://www.jamieweb.net/blog/onionv3-vanity-address/

2: https://www.grepular.com/Transparent_Access_to_Tor_Hidden_Se...