A lot of folks suggest getting your own domain name for having control over your online presence but the question that I have always had is what would happen to them when I die?
Wouldn’t the domains eventually expire and anyone else would be able to register it and access my email attached to that domain? With that email, they can theoretically get into all my accounts which don’t have 2FA on (a lot of the sites just don’t have the option to turn on 2FA) via the ‘Forgot my password’ services?
Similarly, if I have a blog or website that I have poured my heart and soul into for my entire life, wouldn’t that just go down forever when the domain expires? Maybe services like The Internet Archive would help in that regard but I don’t know how many people are actively searching for an archived version of a website when they can’t access it on it’s actual domain.
I understand that after I die, all of this wouldn’t by my concern and wouldn’t matter but I still think about this a lot.
To the people who have their own domain, email and/or blogs, what are your thoughts on this?
I used to once believe, that a lot of what is on the internet lasts forever. It was a little naive to think, because over the course of my time online, I’ve seen things that I thought would last, ended up not lasting.
I would sometimes cross-search old usernames of mine because I do get around online. I can only now see my past accounts that I’ve made at least 5 years ago. Only 2 accounts that I recall, are 10+ years old when it used to be a bit more. It tells me that things will shut down eventually and it’ll take down many accounts with it.
Unless you are on platforms hosted by Google or Microsoft by using their services, it’s going to last for a long time because they’re a little too big to just simply vanish overnight.
Your best option is to just back up what you can and if you remember to before you die, make arrangements for preservation purposes with instructions to those you’d want in on it.
Just searched my old user names and found absolutely nothing except for one post from 2012 on Minecraft forums
It’s one part a lack of SEO/searchability and nine parts sites that are dead and gone taking that information with them.
I haven’t been the best about backups, passwords, etc but I’ll probably set up a dead mans switch at some point to release my passwords to my family and delete my drives if/when I can’t do it myself. I’ve already got bro on call to drive to my house and shred the drives •=•