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Comment by bjt2n3904 | Hacker News Reader

If you have a domain, that's just another liability for email security. Look at what NameCheap did. Imagine losing your domain for some reason -- even forgetting to renew. All your contacts need a new address now, and until then it's dropped emails.

A custom domain is mostly a vanity measure. It does allow you to migrate to a new email service if your provider cancels your subscription, I suppose... But I'd rather only have one thing to worry about.

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This has happened to me, briefly. I once forgot to renew and lost access to email. Luckily I was able to fix the issue quickly.

I do kind of wish I had never gone down the route of using my own domain for email. I use gmail with it, and will now have to bear a recurring payment of $6 monthly (IIRC). I could move hosts but none of them are free to my knowledge, and a free service comes with its own risks anyway. Plus that's my primary Google account.

Now I feel locked in ... it's less about updating my contacts, as I don't field a lot of personal or business email from that account, but more about all of the services where my account is associated with that email address. Not to mention that I've logged into some sites via Google. It would be a royal pain to switch now.

Edit: Also, my domain is super awkward, sometimes doesn't fit in the field when I'm writing it down on a form, and tends to draw comments when I just want to get my business done and go on. ALSO the account name is different from the name I actually use day to day now -- it's James when everyone knows me as Jay.

> and will now have to bear a recurring payment of $6 monthly

Is this the cost for gmail to use a custom domain? or is it a very expensive domain name spread over 12 months?

Google is phasing out free "apps for your domain" accounts, so starting in a few months it will be necessary to pay a monthly fee per user.

I see. At least you have the freedom to move email hosts though.

Do you really need to switch? IME most services don't really use email for anything.

> It would be a royal pain to switch now.

I know it's tough (migrated off G Suite Legacy myself) but it's probably best for the long run since G Suite accounts have less consumer features (in my case, lack of play store reviews and free Google Voice) and it's unlikely to change.

There are many submissions on HN discussing alternatives. Fastmail, Protonmail, iCloud+ (I switched to this), Microsoft 365 are frequently mentioned. I think Zoho also had a free plan.

Not being able to review things in the Play Store was a blocker for your free G Suite account?

Also I still have a legacy G Suite with Google Voice attached to it which works fine -- and will add additional cost when/if I switch away.

It definitely wasn't the sole reason, but a sign that G Suite wouldn't maintain feature parity with consumer Gmail accounts. There are other features like Google Play library sharing which won't be added.

Yeah, people who used Google Voice early on were exempted from paying for managed Google Voice. It might be possible to port your Google Voice to a consumer Gmail account.

The entire point of your own domain is to provide continuity. Of course it's one more thing to worry about, but it also one more layer of protection (an important one).

So without a domain whoever owns the domain you're using can deplatform you. The result is dropped emails at that address forever.

With your own domain, the registrar can pull a namecheap and cancel your country. The result is temporarily dropped emails while you transfer to another domain registrar.

You can set the registrar to autorenew.

I de-googled last year but still use google domains as my registrar. It's just so darn cheap and includes DDNS. I've looked at alternatives and I haven't been able to strongly identify one I trust more than google (as strange as that sounds). How do other people pick a registrar that they trust?

gandi.net

There are DDNS scripts on github to update the DNS record. Picked gandi a very long time ago and have no complaints.

Password managers are just another liability. One more thing you could lose the password to. What if the service shuts down entirely?

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