I have no reason why would anyone use godaddy 10 years ago let alone today
When you're a business and want something reliable, picking the most popular provider is usually a strategy that works decently well. They're more likely to have established processes that work for all sorts of cases.
That's what makes this particular story so egregious.
Domains are a very funny business. I can't think of anything so crucial to businesses, that at the same time generates so little revenue per customer. Your entire technological infrastructure depends on it, yet it costs $15/yr. Making a single support request can turn you into an unprofitable customer.
Sortof? [0]. All the commercials I saw [1] were just meant to get guys to visit their site so the speaking was just for fun. The later fake body-building commercials [2] were unusual.
[0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1p9X8A2ruk
People who base their technical decisions on considerations like that likely deserve the level of service GoDaddy provides :(
The only issue we had was when we wanted to change our nameservers and our authorized contact for registry lock didn't answer the phone for the verification call, so we had to postpone the change for the next day. But that's what is supposed to happen, so no big deal.
Better than networksolutions changing our nameservers when one of their support agents got phished.
Whatever their process is, it's concerning. I wonder how many sign-offs are actually involved, or if it's just a ticket handled and closed by a rep.
Either way, GoDaddy is not the first choice for a new domain in 2026.
Off the top of your head, what would be a decent one?
Edit: "Top Level Design [Porkbun owners] was the domain name registry for several top-level domains including .wiki, .ink and .design, until the company sold these domains to GoDaddy Registry in April 2023" --Wikipedia
If you look up the whois for microsoft.com or yahoo.com, that's who you'll find.
But as others have pointed out, there's basically zero margin on simple domain sales. So if you want proper support, you need to go to someone who bundles it with other enterprise business (e.g. AWS), or who makes it their whole business (e.g. MM).
It's also literally one of the most criticized and awful registrars in the world, by a large margin. If decades of stories like this don't convince you to go with a more reliable registrar then I have very little sympathy.
This story is not egregious, it's in fact typical of GoDaddy. Every so often we get a HN post with a GoDaddy horror story. You'd think people would have learned by now.
That is also at least 10 years old stale matter. Have you ever read people wrongly being locked out from a BIIIIG provider unable to get through to get remedy? Apparently no. I did. I am sure several other people here did too.
Motto: "Eat shit! A trillion flies cannot be wrong!"
In my experience the sentence is only correct this way: "They're more likely to have established processes for all sorts of cases"
They have lots of clients. They have big opportunities to streamline support (which is a cost center). ... do you see where it leads? Read the OP, if not!
Read the last paragraph in my comment.
For offline goods, definitely. For digital services, 10+ years ago, definitely. For digital services, in 2026, it's a bad strategy even if you're a business and want something reliable.
But they proven over and over and over and over and over again that they are not a reliable business partner.
That is a strange idea to me. Some people are real fans of the lowest bidder, no matter how awful they are.
> [...] is one of the most competent IT guys I know. The GoDaddy account had [...]
Don't think I've ever heard something good about GoDaddy.
If we ask 100 likely buyers family feud style, where would they go buy a domain, GoDaddy likely is going to be the top answer by a wide margin.
They wouldn't know about any bad news/ security incident with the brand either.
Do it, now. What comes up?
Yes, once IT gets professionalised, they should switch to a better provider. But the registration will likely be for multiple years, with auto-renewal, and when nothing has gone wrong, theoretical problems take a backseat to live ones.