Other than looking cool to your friends, owning your own domain increases your digital self-reliance. It's kind of like having your own phone number. Just like switching cell phone carriers if you don't like your provider, you can easily switch registrars, hosting companies, or email provider and the world would be none the wiser.
There are many reasons to have your own domain that don't involve email or a website, but for me, those are the two primary ones. I have two websites: one for professional purposes and one for personal uses (this one). When buying beginning to use a domain, there's a few considerations I wish I thought about first.
For example, will the TLD (such as .xyz) be blocked by ISPs or automatically flagged as spam by email providers because security teams are lazy? Or whether non-technical people will arbitrarily add an "m" at the end of an email address that ends in ".co" because they don't know any better? My suggestion is to stick with well established TLDs like .com, .net, or .org unless you understand what the drawbacks and limitations are (or don't plan on using it with email).
Cost is another factor. I use Iceland's TLD ".is" which is around ~$50/yr and can only be renewed annually rather than up to 10 years as with other domains. The benefit is that it's easy and fun to use in that I can configure sweet-looking URLs like chuck.is/dumb. That being said, established TLD's like .com, .net, and .org are usually the most cost effective and run for about ~$15/yr and can be paid for up to 10 years in advance. They've also been around a lot longer so you're unlikely to find a short domains like chuck.net because some guy cooler than you already snagged it.
Let's talk about email. Once upon a time I wrote a post about why you should use your own domain for all your email. To summarize, having your own email domain is like owning the doorstep to your digital life.
For example, I own chuckcarroll.net and my email address is chuck@chuckcarroll.net. This decouples me from providers like Gmail, Yahoo, Microsoft, and even Protonmail. While many of these providers allow you to use a custom domain (for a fee), but if they do something you don't like or they suspend your account for any reason, you're basically screwed unless you have your own domain.
With a custom domain, you can typically move to a different provider with ease. This is why I considering switching as not unlike porting your cellphone number to a different carrier.
Another benefit of custom domains are email aliases. I can create any alias I want such as "school@chuckcarroll.net" or "[business]@chuckcarroll.net" on the fly. Each service I register with online gets a unique email address. When my credentials were leaked last year, I was quickly able to determine who was responsible because the exposed email address was "meineke@chuckcarroll.net" - a company I mistakenly gave my email address to for an oil change (any nobody should ever do business with them).
That being said, I should note that I've been slowly moving away from using [business]@chuckcarroll.net aliases. When real people see the custom email address, they often assume either I work for that company or that I gave false information. Either way, it makes for awkward social interactions.
Owning your own domain also means you can have your own personal or professional website that you fully control. Years ago, I wrote about why I think it's important for everyone to have a personal website. The same arguments apply here, but I'll add that if you're trying to get noticed (especially if you're looking for work) having a website helps you stand out.
I also strongly believe that if you're going to write or publish anything, you should own your publishing tools and your platform. Own your words. Own your distribution. Avoid falling into the trap of publishing on someone else's platform like Medium or Substack.
A domain also enables you to run and share online services. I use custom domains with services like Wallabag, Jellyfin, and Audiobookshelf. If a service is running on my server, I can easily and securely share that service with friends or family since it's publicly accessible. For this I use Cloudflare's Zero Trust tunnels.
Beyond being a ton of fun to experiment and play around with, owning a domain grants you freedoms you otherwise wouldn't have. It gives you control, flexibility, and long term independence of your digital life.
Thanks for reading. Feel free to send comments, questions, or recommendations to hey@chuck.is.