Do you prefer .com domains for email?

[jeffpan]

Do you prefer .com domains over other tlds?
For example,

1. Do you prefer name@prontonmail.com or name@proton.me?
2. Do you prefer name@tutamail.com or name@tuta.de?
3. Do you prefer james.smith@pobox.com or js@pobox.be?

For me, I will always prefer .com domains because they look more formal and traditional. Although a custom domain name can be short and cool, it is okay to play around with it, but it does not look formal when used as an email.

[chrisretusn]

Doesn't really matter to me. Of my current active accounts all are .com, except two .net and one .com.ph (probably counts as .com).

[Fenman]

In the examples of the OP, I would choose .com. If it were between .com and .uk, I'd choose .uk.

The personal domains I use are 1x .cc, 3 x .uk and 1 x .xyz

[TenFour]

Yes, I prefer .coms. Here in the USA other TLDs are less common, though there are many .org and .net domains. People just assume the ending will be .com and if you have an address that ends in something else you can count on many people entering it incorrectly. Also, some TLDs, like .xyz, seem to have deliverability problems. I would stick to .com, .net, and .org if possible.

[hadaso]

I never liked the .com ending for a personal domain, because originally .com was meant to be "commercial". So in "myname.com" the .com part has no meaning, or has the wrong meaning, as I am not a commercial entity. Similarly the .org ending was meant to be used by various non-commercial organizations, and in "myname.org" the ending has the wrong meaning, as I am not an organization. The .net ending was originally meant to be used by entities that provide network services, and although I am not providing network services "myname.net" still has some relevant meaning as "my presence on the network" (that is on the internet).
So I use "myname.net" for my email, and I have "*@myname.com" redirected to "*@myname.net" so if anyone uses the .com ending by mistake I still get the email (however this never happened, as far as I can recall, and all I receive in the myname.com domain is a little spam sent to generic addresses such as support@, webmaster@, postmaster@ etc.)
I never tried to register any domain with my country code, since "myname.co,il" or "myname.net.il" or "myname.org.il" is just as meaningless as "myname.com" (and also costs more, and might have some deliverability issues).
I also have "myname.info", that I don't use for email, but I do use occasionally to share information and files with people (share resources with colleagues. post itinerary information when I travel, and then I put stickers with the URL on my baggage and my phone and in my wallet and other things I might lose so it would be easy to find me if I lose something).
I also registered mylastname.family, and right now I use it only for a little memorial website for my dad that passed away a couple of years ago, but perhaps when I retire I would find more uses for it. I may have used it for the login identity for my family Fastmail account, but the tld was not available when I opened that account, so I already use a subdomain in one of my other domains, and cannot bother to change the username.
I actually don't like the concept of a tld. I understand how in the beginning it was thought that each tld would have a particular use, different than other tld's, and that the hierarchical scheme allows different entities to mange their part of the network (countries control all subdomains of their country codes. Some organization representing universities and colleges handles the subdomains of .edu. The US government handles subdomains of .gov etc.). However .com and .net anf .org and lots of other tld's like .info became generic long ago, and it would have been better just let people and organizations register "myname" or "nameoforganization" without any tld, instead of having all these generic tld's with no functional difference between them.

[jeffpan]

Originally Posted by hadaso

I never liked the .com ending for a personal domain, because originally .com was meant to be "commercial". So in "myname.com" the .com part has no meaning, or has the wrong meaning, as I am not a commercial entity. Similarly the .org ending was meant to be used by various non-commercial organizations, and in "myname.org" the ending has the wrong meaning, as I am not an organization. The .net ending was originally meant to be used by entities that provide network services, and although I am not providing network services "myname.net" still has some relevant meaning as "my presence on the network" (that is on the internet).
So I use "myname.net" for my email, and I have "*@myname.com" redirected to "*@myname.net" so if anyone uses the .com ending by mistake I still get the email (however this never happened, as far as I can recall, and all I receive in the myname.com domain is a little spam sent to generic addresses such as support@, webmaster@, postmaster@ etc.)
I never tried to register any domain with my country code, since "myname.co,il" or "myname.net.il" or "myname.org.il" is just as meaningless as "myname.com" (and also costs more, and might have some deliverability issues).
I also have "myname.info", that I don't use for email, but I do use occasionally to share information and files with people (share resources with colleagues. post itinerary information when I travel, and then I put stickers with the URL on my baggage and my phone and in my wallet and other things I might lose so it would be easy to find me if I lose something).
I also registered mylastname.family, and right now I use it only for a little memorial website for my dad that passed away a couple of years ago, but perhaps when I retire I would find more uses for it. I may have used it for the login identity for my family Fastmail account, but the tld was not available when I opened that account, so I already use a subdomain in one of my other domains, and cannot bother to change the username.
I actually don't like the concept of a tld. I understand how in the beginning it was thought that each tld would have a particular use, different than other tld's, and that the hierarchical scheme allows different entities to mange their part of the network (countries control all subdomains of their country codes. Some organization representing universities and colleges handles the subdomains of .edu. The US government handles subdomains of .gov etc.). However .com and .net anf .org and lots of other tld's like .info became generic long ago, and it would have been better just let people and organizations register "myname" or "nameoforganization" without any tld, instead of having all these generic tld's with no functional difference between them.

Nice experience. Thanks for sharing.

[Avion]

Originally Posted by hadaso

it would have been better just let people and organizations register "myname" or "nameoforganization" without any tld, instead of having all these generic tld's with no functional difference between them.

That would be a very bad idea!

Imagine if one individual 'John Smith' gets his chosen name in that scenario - what about all the other John Smith's in the world?

[hadaso]

Originally Posted by Avion

That would be a very bad idea!

Imagine if one individual 'John Smith' gets his chosen name in that scenario - what about all the other John Smith's in the world?

That's not much different from the present situation: only one Smith gets smith.com. only one smith gets smith.net. only one smith gets smith.org, and not much left for the several million Smith's left. Worse: the one Smith that got smith.com receives lots of email meant for the Smith with smith.net or smith.org because people tend to append .com (and some systems automatically append it by default).
Anyway, smith.com is owned by some drilling company and smith.net nowadays actually sells email addresses @smith.net (so John smith can get john3829371@smith.net, but john@smith.net is probably taken). smith.info is for sale by GoDaddy.

[jeffpan]

Maybe a .smith tld is the better solution for this case.
then people can have james.smith, joanne.smith etc.

[TenFour]

That's not much different from the present situation: only one Smith gets smith.com. only one smith gets smith.net. only one smith gets smith.org, and not much left for the several million Smith's left. Worse: the one Smith that got smith.com receives lots of email meant for the Smith with smith.net or smith.org because people tend to append .com (and some systems automatically append it by default).
Anyway, smith.com is owned by some drilling company and smith.net nowadays actually sells email addresses @smith.net (so John smith can get john3829371@smith.net, but john@smith.net is probably taken). smith.info is for sale by GoDaddy.

All good points. A little off-the-topic but this perfectly illustrates why for most things it is better to use an email address that is short, catchy, and unique--or almost so. Even generic sounding addresses like yourname2345@gmail.com are less likely to confuse someone or cause mail delivery issues. But, for most things I prefer to use something that doesn't reveal who exactly I am in bold letters for all the world to use however they wish.

[n5bb]

For most uses I use my personal domain. Last month I passed the 25th anniversary of ownership of this domain, which is my last name dot net. In the US Census my last name is listed about 6 times per million people, so it’s rather uncommon. In 1999 I noticed that a company in England (where this name is more common) had bought the .com domain version, so I purchased my last name at the .net TLD.

I have never had any delivery issues using my personal domain. Persons with email addresses at the .com TLD using this last name occasionally accidentally sign up using my .net address accidentally. But I like having a domain which identifies me. If I’m signing up for some service where I have any security concerns I use email addresses I control at other domains at Fastmail, such as sent.com.

Bill

[Avion]

Originally Posted by hadaso

That's not much different from the present situation: only one Smith gets smith.com. only one smith gets smith.net. only one smith gets smith.org, and not much left for the several million Smith's left.

Wikipedia says there are 1500+ TLD's, so there's a better chance for some of the John Smith's of this world to get a domain, than there would be without any generic TLD's.

[hadaso]

Originally Posted by Avion

Wikipedia says there are 1500+ TLD's, so there's a better chance for some of the John Smith's of this world to get a domain, than there would be without any generic TLD's.

But then, if instead of registering domains under all these TLD's the practice was that anyone can register a TLD, then any John smith would be able to affordably register any tld, and then use johnsmith.tld when he owns .tld, without being limited to 1500 tlds, some of which may not be very reliable.

[SideshowBob]

In practice, allowing individuals to register TLDs would be equivalent to creating one extra null TLD that supports single label domains - it would be impractical to treat them like current TLDs The reputation of these single label domains would be treated collectively just like .xyz.

It would allow people to use subdomains, like johnsmith.ghhjg, but you can already do that with johnsmith.ghhjg.net.

All of the meaningful single label domains would be bought up quickly making it hard to create new TLDs with individual polices. There's also the risk that the existing TLDs could go out of fashion, leading to a near monopoly.

[TenFour]

I wonder if instead people should be assigned a random TLD that is unique and good for life, like our phone numbers can be. That way you could always have an email address like johndoe@12345xyz. I suppose nobody could be anonymous but maybe that could be achieved somehow too.