this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2026
815 points (97.0% liked)
Programmer Humor
31037 readers
1406 users here now
Welcome to Programmer Humor!
This is a place where you can post jokes, memes, humor, etc. related to programming!
For sharing awful code theres also Programming Horror.
Rules
- Keep content in english
- No advertisements
- Posts must be related to programming or programmer topics
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Exactly.
My first personal e-mail way back in the 90s was with my ISP. Then I changed ISPs and saw the problem with that. So I moved to Yahoo.
Some years later, in the 00s I just decided to get my own, paid for, Internet domain and have my e-mail there, even though I could've carried on using Yahoo or get Google Mail (very popular amongst techies back then) for free. The main reason was that I realized I must made sure the e-mail address was MINE, not actually owned by somebody else with me allowed to use it under their conditions.
Twenty years later and guess it was pretty wise to not have my e-mail in the claws of "Definitelly Do Evil" Google.
Experience using and living with Tech, mainly once your understanding of it reaches the level of understanding systemic elements, naturally informs ones choices in Tech, and that often means chosing something else than the mass marketed "popular" stuff that's designed to lock you in, sell you stuff or sell your attention to others and eavesdrop on you and sell your data.
Another perspective. You got lucky that the dependencies you're working with haven't gotten as bad as the ones for Gmail and the like. Sure you've got a domain, but you've also got a domain registrar you're dependent on. Yeah, you've got your own email server, but it's dependent on open source software, and the monopolists allowing it to still connection, though that's getting iffy. You're also dependent on the kindness of a number of people continuing to contribute to Linux, and it not being compromised in some way.
I made a different choice 25 years ago, and went with Gmail, but the idea that you're smarter because your dependencies didn't turn to sh*t is as much luck as skill. 25 years is several eternities in tech, and there are no guaranteed outcomes.
If you have your own domain, you aren't stuck with your dependencies. Swapping registrars is a straight forward porting procedure. Swapping hosting is a matter of replacing 5 or so DNS entries. It took me about 20 minutes to reconfigure my domain's email when I decided I didn't want to use Proton anymore.
And you knew 25 years ago that the market wouldn't consolidate down to 1-2 registrars?
I suppose you can't know that, but your odds on betting on a whole industry are better than a single company. Not to mention, the barrier to entry for a registrar becoming accredited really isn't that high, so I wouldn't expect market consolidation unless ICANN changes the process, at which point shit is fucked regardless.
I think there’s a wider point here, open source is the good long term bet
Has been so far, but I don't feel that was obvious 25 years ago.