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like The Internet Archive would help in that regard but I don’t know how many people are actively searching for an archived version of a website when they can’t access it on it’s actual domain.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?
You need a succession plan for your death.
That can either be a will, a conservatorship, a trust. It can just be a bit warden account that has emergency access from a trusted friend, a lawyer, family member.
You can ensure your site is backed up by archive.org, and your online accounts are well documented in your password manager such as bitwarden.
Alternatively if you have the means, setting up a foundation that has direct access to the content and making yourself an officer with somebody else being next in line would make things easier for a transition. Depending on the depth of your content.
Sit down, and think about your goals, what do you want your legacy to be. And make sure you’re achieving those goals. It could simply be printing out all of your output and making a book, filing with the library of Congress releasing it as an ebook. Making sure it persists in the Gutenberg press etc