[blindm]

> it's easier to just buy a domain and route * to your inbox

There is the caveat of the domain getting into the wrong hands, if you look long enough down the road. What if you die, or simply can't afford to renew the domain well into the future? I know if I could look down from heaven after I die and saw someone re-registering my dropped domain, I would be furious!

Then there is the issue of even when you're alive, you could simply refuse to renew for whatever reason and the domain is suddenly someone else's.

MarkMonitor and Epik are the only companies that I know of that can safeguard against this. Epik has so called 'forever domains' and ensure the domain stays active well into the future.

[jamesboehmer]

I gave this some thought and decided it's actually worse with gmail. If google decides they don't like me, they can kill my email and I would lose access to pretty much everything.

But if my custom-domain email provider closes shop, I can at least take my domain with me.

You have a point though, I should just prepay for the next 10 years of my domain, and set myself a reminder to renew in 9 years :-)

[jsheard]

Renewing a .com for the maximum 10 years in advance is a bit of a trap, because to transfer the domain to another registrar you have to buy at least one additional year... which you can't do if you're already at the 10 year limit. If your registrar pulls a GoDaddy and you want to move away you might find yourself having to wait up to a year.

There might be similar caveats with other TLDs but I only have experience with .com

[kube-system]

Good point. I'll make sure to keep mine registered 9-years out from now on.

[Ayesh]

"pulls a GoDaddy"

I think we are at the point that a noun becomes a verb to say how good or bad (Godaddys case) something is!

[arpa]

It's just a domain, man, chill, don't let it drag you down. Why should you feel so strongly about transient things? It's just a name...

[dinkleberg]

They have a point though, when you rely on a domain you’ve gotta be cautious. If I buy your domain when you forget to renew it I can then do password resets against any accounts you used an email on that domain with.

[megous]

It would be nice if web services offered an option to disable this misfeature per account, or better yet offer to upload the user's PGP key and encrypt all outgoing email with it, incl. the password reset email.

[kart23]

do you have more info on the 'forever domain'? Are they actually guaranteeing the domain forever or is it just as long as Epik exists?

[blindm]

> do you have more info on the 'forever domain'?

https://www.epik.com/forever/