Do you buy domains for personal or side projects?

No, I use whatever subdomain option I have available with tools such as Vercel or GitHub pages.

The thing is I live in a developing country and the dolar exchange is high these times. I only buy domains for long live stuff.

I bought enough domains for projects which ultimately went nowhere that I became very reluctant to do this... Just out of principle. If you buy 10 domains and do nothing with them it's maybe not a huge expense depending on your economic situation, but I just decided I need more skin in the game first.

(Companies should probably not follow this principle, and just buy the domains if they're at non-premium prices)

I only buy domain when I begin to do something on a project.

First, because beginning is the hardest. Second, because I know, when I begin a project, if I will like it enough to bring something online.

I usually do. But recently I've decided to go with subdomains instead as it's starting to be expensive.

Somethings it's worth to get the domain instead if you expect high traffic and want to spread the word better as I did recently with tablericons.com

So it depends.

Sure if I ever I have an idea I buy a domain. I dont see why not because domains are cheap. I probably don't really follow through with all of my ideas but I think securing the domain is always a good step before I really think about making it. Maybe its just the thought of actually having the domain that makes me feel like it will work out I guess.

If there's a possibility that I might want to go public with the project in the future and the domain name is very good and also available right now, I would. I would grab the domain and a bunch of social media accounts as well to reserve them. Social media is cheap (free), domains can be relatively low cost depending on the domain and registrar.

But if I'm flexible on the domain name, like I don't mind adding an extra word like "app" or removing a couple vowels here or there in the project name, then I probably wouldn't bother as much.

I got a personal .dev that I am working on using for my online resumé/portfolio. While I have limited knowledge about web hosts, I managed to make a subdomain for my wedding website, so I'd think that I could do that as much as I want to? Could I begin to tell you how? No.....someday, I'll understand - maybe after I find out if my web host is a good one or not 😅 sigh

Shop Talk Show just did an episode about this: shoptalkshow.com/421/

I think the upshot is that domain prices add up, especially as they are recurring, and that we should bring subdomains into fashion which you can add to one domain for free.

I do have domains for my three main side projects, so I'm a bit hypocritical, but all of those projects are for a non-developer audience. I feel like a subdomain on my personal name wouldn't go as well in that case.

It depends. I only have 1 semi-active side project right now and it does have a domain. But I could see myself using subdomains too from services like Netlify depending on what I'm doing.

I do know some people who are hoarding domains they bought for different protect ideas though. I definitely can't afford to do that.
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Mostly side projects, some domains a bought, like about 2 out of 6-ish, never got to be used. Some i dont actually buy so much as they were free (Github Education vouchers).

At the moment I have like 3 active domains on my side projects, one of them is in beta so hopefully it will become something serious eventually.