[iforgotpassword]

Thanks for that anecdote. I was planning on using the lockdown home office situation to finally buy some domain and set up my own email server.

I wasn't sure whether I should set up forwarding on my Gmail account or have the server fetch mail from it regularly. Was leaning towards the second option but I think now it's settled which option to choose.

Edit: Ok there's one more stupid scenario. Let's assume I do lose access to the Gmail account but forwarding still works. Now I'm in an accident and stay at a hospital and totally forget to pay the renewal fee for my domain. Boom, some domain squatter gets all my mails. Actually, that would even apply without Gmail in the mix. Sure I'd set up automatic payment for renewal but still, can I be a little paranoid here? ;-)

[Symbiote]

Choose a domain that accepts 10 year renewals, and extend by one year every year.

If you're in a 9/10 year coma, you probably don't care about your email any more.

[tzs]

You can even automate that, for up to 100 total years of domain ownership, if you are willing to deal with Network Solutions.

They offer terms of 20 years and 100 years, which are longer than the standard maximum 10 years. The way it is implemented is that they register the domain for you for the maximum allowed time (10 years for most TLDs), and then each year the extend it by a year keeping the expiration as far out as allowed for that TLD.

I looked at this a while ago, when contemplating moving my domain in .net from there to Namecheap (where I already had a .us domain), because they gave a big enough discount on 100 years that it brought the price per year to $9.99, which is pretty good for a .net.

Then I realized that even if I lived long enough to become the oldest living human I'd still only get about halfway through the 100 years making the cost per year effectively $20, which is a crappy price for .net.

Now it is even worse. They have doubled the price for 100 years, making it a crappy deal. Even if annual .net renewal went up 10% a year, it would take 29 years before you would have been better off going with 100 year NS over year to year Namecheap. (They NS 20 year plan would be better off after 16 years).

At 5% annual increase, NS 20 is about the same cost as Namecheap, and NS 100 beats Namecheap after 44 years.

(This is all assuming that in the Namecheap case the money that would have been spent upgrade on NS 20 or NS 100 is just sitting around. If you assume it is invested in some safe long term investment, NS 100 and to a lesser extent NS 20 makes even less sense. Also there is the risk that at some point NS will no longer be around and their demise happens in a way that kills these long term registration programs).

[toomuchtodo]

If your payment method can be auto charged each year, and is paid for out of something like investment income, your domain is essentially perpetual (I do this).

[dingaling]

The domain might be but the infrastructure likely won't be.

[toomuchtodo]

Infra can be replaced, online identity (email, etc) not so easily. I wish I could pay the Internet Archive to host my email!

[joyj2nd]

"Thanks for that anecdote. I was planning on using the lockdown home office situation to finally buy some domain and set up my own email server."

Don't do this. Buy an email with a domain that offers email. e.g. gandi.net or infomaniak.com They do have phone numbers if things go wrong. Hosting your email is easy. Having you emails delivered and not blocked is an art.