Good DNS people live in remote places

DNS and domain registration services generally suck. GoDaddy people hunt elephants. Hover is okay, but has mediocre customer service (personal experience) and bad web interface (objective truth). There’s tons of bad domain registrars out there. But amongst them, there are people that know their shit and know it well, and they don’t try to scam or bullshit you.

What follows is an unpaid advertisement for ISNIC and iwantmyname.

I own a couple of domains, and amongst them is piotrkazmierczak.com. piotrkazmierczak.com used to be my primary email domain, but recently more and more often I have to spell my email address to people, and if it’s Dutch people I’m talking to, and my email is in piotrkazmierczak.com domain, things aren’t as smooth as they should be. So I intended to simplify things, and bought piotr.is, which I now use as my primary domain. It’s shorter, simpler, better. And it’s Icelandic.

Some of you may not know this, but Icelandic domains are controlled by ISNIC, aka “Internet á Íslandi hf.“ ISNIC is the registrar and keeper of rules, of which there are many. Not only when it comes to registration, but also technical ones. ISNIC also has a clunky web interface that it forces its clients to use.

And you know what? I ❤️ these people. They are smart. Their rules are sane. Their website contain no idiotic javascript and no advertisements. Their technical support is smart af. They don’t bullshit. The internet needs more people like ISNIC.

And then there’s the other domain registrar I use, they’re called iwantmyname.com. And despite the somewhat ridiculous name, this Wellington, NZ-based company is hands-down the best general-purpose domain registrar I ever used, by a fat margin.

Again, like in the case of ISNIC, the web interface of iwantmyname.com contains no adverts, no heavy javascript, and no bullshit. Their support is absolutely brilliant. Every support email I got was full of technical depth and to the point; I was always amazed. They don’t try to trick you into buying additional services.

iwantmyname.com is a small business. Just look at them. They run on Perl, Erlang, and FreeBSD. They have opinions, which are actually well thought-through. And they all hail from Wellington, NZ.

Is there something about remote, slightly too-windy and too-rainy places that makes good network engineers? Is there something about these places that makes people setup companies/institutions that customers actually want to love and send flowers to?

And if yes, how do I get to move there? 🤔