own your domain
why you should buy and control your own domain name
for various reasons you should buy, control, and use a domain when it comes to your email (mostly) and other internet things.
using a custom domain with email providers usually requires a paid subscription,
but its worth it in my opinion and providers are making it easier to bring
your own device domain (BYOD), even the fruit company allows you to use
your domain these days.
using a custom domain makes switching email providers much easier down the road. just change the mail (MX) records to the new service. of course migrating your data is another issue, you may or may not care about that.
it gives you a brand across the net. if later you want a presence on the net, you can host a website using the same domain.
if you have a business tied to this domain, it makes sense to have the brand threaded throughout the business, its website, email addresses, etc.
if data sovereignty matters to you or your business, getting off the freemium email services will get you control of your data. where it’s hosted, backing it up, etc.
you can register and host your domain at different providers. this isn’t a requirement of course, you can use the same provider for both. but i always choose to register my domains at one provider and host them at another.
splitting them limits the blast radius. if one account gets compromised or a provider goes sideways, the other half is untouched and you can move quickly. it also keeps you from getting locked into a single provider’s ecosystem.
one warning though. owning the domain means owning the renewal. let it lapse and someone else can register it and start receiving your email. set it to auto-renew, keep the payment method current, and treat that registrar account like it holds the keys to your identity.
because it does.