After many years and experiments, another conclusion I'd like to share:

Helmut Tammen

@jwildeboer totally agree. Having your own domain offers you a lot of possibilities. But there are two hurdles to overcome. First one you described, it's the configuration. People with no technical background don't (want to) understand the details. So it has to be foolproof.
The second one are the costs. Although a domain does not cost a lot (I pay €18/year) not everyone can or is willing to pay this. It's much easier to have a subdomain at Facebook, ... that "costs" nothing.

Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

@htammen I find 4-6€/year for a .eu or .de domain quite acceptable. See my price comparison I made a year ago at https://jan.wildeboer.net/2024/04/Big-Transfer/ when I decided to move my domains away from gandi.net

Eugenus Optimus 🇺🇦

@jwildeboer is there only you on this mastodon instance? How much it cost to run a server for it?

Eugenus Optimus 🇺🇦

@jwildeboer what domain registrar you using? I was on namecheap, but recently started using DynaDot, they have mobile app and clean UI without selling more stuff like GoDaddy

Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

@ujeenator It's me and my mom Due to my follower count and traffic from/to my instance, I am on the Star plan for $19/mo

Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

@ujeenator See my blog post at https://jan.wildeboer.net/2024/04/Big-Transfer/ where I explained my search for a new domain provider and how I ended up with a small company that give me special prices because the owner likes me

Eugenus Optimus 🇺🇦

@jwildeboer more than I expected, bur still affordable

Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

@ujeenator I could also run a misskey or sharkey instance as container on my server more or less for free (and I might do that at some point in the future) but for now I am very happy with a super reliable instance managed by an absolute expert

Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

@akamran @courtcan @friesen5000 Outline now at https://social.wildeboer.net/@jwildeboer/113814888300823384 Will take a few weeks to get everything posted.

lj·rk

@jwildeboer I’d recommend not necessarily using your name… as long as you’re not 100% sure it might change 0:-)

Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

@ljrk Sure. Which is why I specifically said "a recognisable but not "funny" name". I use my surname because it works for me but I also own 20+ more domain names for different purposes.

Ingo Wichmann

@jwildeboer even with your own domain name: how would you move your mastodon instance to another provider without loosing all your data?

Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

@ingo_wichmann Download the backups that masto.host provides and import them to a new instance. (Yes, I actually do that regularly with a mastodon container on my server just in case