One might think (or at least I thought) that it’s simple enough to buy a domain (although buy might be the wrong word, more on that later). First came the step of choosing a domain. I had thought that – as an extremly indecisive person – the choice would be a hard one. I could not have been more wrong:
acharya.ch: sold
acharya.com: sold
acharya.io: sold
Even after searching for “tanish” with the same domain extensions, I could not find ANY available ones. I mean, how frequent is my name in Switzerland?! So my quest – although dejected – continued. Despite the fact that I did search for “tanishacharya.ch” and even found that it was available, I wasn’t all too happy with it. What would come before the @-symbol? tanish@tanishacharya.ch doesn’t look really nice, does it now? It even got to a point where I wondered if it had to contain my name because remember, this domain was actually solely supposed to be used for an email address. The family of a friend does this, why not me as well? I tried to think of domains, which sounded cool, modern, zeitgeisty (this is an official word btw). But none of them truly connected with me, which is why I went back to the drawing board and revisited the original idea. It had to contain (at least a part of) my name. That was the only condition. But apparently, the internet had other plans. What remained was the full thing: tanishacharya.ch (which isn’t bad, because at the end of the day, it is my beautiful name).
But with me being the person I am, I needed validation; that buying this specific domain and going through all the headache was actually worth it. So after using my telephone joker to get the opinion of my best friend, I finally bought rented it.
You can’t buy a domain outright—you can only rent it.
– A random reddit user
As this person already pointed out, domains work more like a renewable lease than an actual purchase. When you register (buy) a domain, you’re not buying it in the sense of buying shoes or the latest smartphone; You’re paying for the right to use it for a set period. If you stop paying, it goes right back onto the market. Luckily, my provider gives the option to set up a subscription, meaning I definitely won’t forget to renew my “lease” ;)
Although I wasn’t really planning on it, it seems as if I’ve learnt quite a bit about websites, yay.
You’re reading this post, meaning my domain did not only end up being used for an email address nobody thinks of. I am actually using it for something. Something I never thought, I’d end up doing. Read all about it in my next post (which will be released soon:))
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