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Comment by jsjohnst | Hacker News Reader

Why not renew for ten years, then every year extend it by one more year. Best of both worlds and if something screws up, you have 9 more years to fix it.

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Ceremonies that aren't critical have a higher likelihood of being skipped, forgotten or ignored...

LetsEncrypt chose 3 months. Maybe that’s a hint for us that frequent renewals are better.

No, for SSL certificates there's value in having a short expiry. For example if the private keys leak. There's no value in having a domain name (that you want to keep) expire.

The value is in forcing you to keep it in mind. You don’t forget about things you have to do every 3 months as easily as something you have to do every 10 years.

If your logic is sound, then explain why I forget to refill my medication on time which I do monthly, but I don’t forget to renew my domains?

You’re comparing apples and oranges. Do you more easily forget a password you use everyday or one you use once a year?

While this statistically might be true, I believe that this is completely dependent on one's personality. Having extra chances to remedy a trouble (which, as can be seen from the article, may occur due to reasons completely out of hand) has notable benefits, such as eliminating such prolonged downtimes.

It is like having replacement toothpaste ready for your bathroom. It is such a nuisance to go out and buy it on the day it runs out, and more likely to have a day without if you do not keep replacements ready.

Is it 10x more likely that a systematized annual renewal is going to fail if the domain name has been registered for 10 years already?

It would be hard to make the case for 2x, but 10x?

This feels like a solid way to do it.

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