I have a unique name, think John Doe, and I’m hoping to create a unique and “professional” looking email account like johndoe@gmail.com or john@doe.com. Since my name is common, all reasonable permutations are taken. I was considering purchasing a domain with something unique, then making personal family email accounts for john@mydoe.com jane@mydoe.com etc.
Consider that I’m starting from scratch (I am). Is there a preferred domain registrar, are GoDaddy or NameCheap good enough? Are there prebuilt services I can just point my domain to or do I need to spin up a VPS and install my own services? Are there concerns tying my accounts to a service that might go under or are some “too big to fail”?
I can expand what hangs off the domain later, but for now I just need a way to make my own email addresses and use them with the relative ease of Gmail or others. Thanks in advance!!
I’ve had providers acquired from under me several times over the last couple decades. They usually get worse after that; new owners typically want to squeeze the customers not to improve quality. That’s why I won’t use (anymore) any email service that’s not easy to migrate away from.
To achieve a reasonable level of email independence you need IMAP access, you need to use your own domain, and you need to keep your DNS service separate from the email provider.