(Not the registrar. E.g., .com TLD is operated by Verisign.)

I wanted a domain for my e-mail. Sounds simple.
But I am a major overthinker, so over the period of past 2 weeks (damn!) I've been deciding between e-mail providers, choosing potential domain names, choosing a TLD (round 1 - by price and looks), looking through registrars, deciding whom to choose for nameservers, and now I am comparing registry operators (TLD round 2).

There are differences, such as who can register a domain, restrictions on domain privacy, and some TLDs like .dev are on HSTS preload list.

Currently, I am mostly looking at EURid with .eu TLD.
What piqued my interest is being able to transfer a domain directly through the registry. So, if a registrar locked me out or shut down, I could still transfer my domain.
From EURid:

From your registrar: Your first point of contact should be your registrar.
From the My .eu platform: You can also issue the transfer authorization code yourself on the My.eu account.
From EURid: This should be done only as a last resort. After proving you are the holder of the domain and cannot obtain an authorization code from your current registrar or via the My .eu platform, you can request an emergency transfer authorization code directly from EURid

Alright.
But I must wonder, how do I prove my ownership?

First sign that this may not be that secure is right on the same page:

Print the form, sign it and send it to us via email at authcoderequest@eurid.eu. If the requester is an organization, please print the form on company letterhead paper or add a company stamp.

OK, the form. Here's the request page. Fields are domain name, first name, last name, job title, email address, and reason for the request.

I generated the form to see what's there. So... is this the security?:

I hereby confirm that I am the rightful holder of the domain name mentioned above, or that I have obtained the legal power to
represent the holder, and that all data provided is true and correct. I am fully aware that making a false statement in this
matter is considered fraud and may have judicial consequences.

I mean, it doesn't even sound like they collect your signature during the verification, not that a picture provides much security. This is one of the methods:

You can receive a small bank payment (less than one euro) from EURid, which includes a 10-character code that starts and ends with “EU”, with six digits in between (EUXXXXXXEU). After receiving this payment, the domain holder logs in to the My .eu platform and enters the code to verify their registration data.

Either way, it seems this might be mitigated by registry lock:

The Registrar Lock Service will also protect your domain name from accidental changes, but the difference from Registry Lock is that a locked domain name can still be transferred with an authorisation code sent to your My .eu account or an emergency authorisation code received from EURid.

Enough about safety. What about privacy?
The T&C [PDF] prohibits the domain having info of the registrar:

Your registration
data must be your own data and must not be that of your Registrar, or of a proxy holder or a
representative of a natural person or legal entity who does not meet the eligibility criteria. You
may at any time check your registration data via the web-based WHOIS or the secure
registrant portal available on our Website.

But it gets a bit better in the WHOIS policy [PDF]:

When the Registrant is a natural person the Registry publishes the Registrant´s e-mail
address and language.

Alright. I hope there's someone else who took a similarly overcomplicated route in choosing a domain name.

This is good EU related info. Ugh - now I'm going to spend the time thinking about this. Good info though TY. I use proton mail btw .... but I'm considering running my own mail server again for non essential domains I own.

deciding whom to choose for nameservers

This is tangential to your actual question, but why not host your own? I've had good experiences with self-hosting an authoritative nameserver for my domains. I personally use BIND (named), but I know someone who does the same with nsd and that also works very well.

edit: actually, might as well add the reasoning behind my choice of TLD, since it's pretty simple. It's a .de domain because I'm in Germany :)

This is good EU related info.

Wasn't meant to be. I didn't mention that .eu is only available for citizens, residents and companies in a European Union Member State, Iceland, Liechtenstein or Norway: https://cdn.eurid.eu/assets/terms_and_conditions-2.pdf

And history shows that (a country) exiting the EU means losing the domain name: https://eurid.eu/en/news/update-on-brexit-related-domain-names/

why not host your own

I'll first have to research how, but at no point will I consider myself as reliable as some professional provider like Cloudflare.
On the other hand, Cloudflare is kind of becoming the internet with all the centralization. Imagine if Cloudflare and AWS completely went offline at the same time. The internet would be fairly quiet.

That's fair. Though you should consider that it's really easy to set up secondary nameservers as a mirror (ns-global, for example, offers such a service). So your own reliability matters less in the end.

On the other hand, Cloudflare is kind of becoming the internet with all the centralization.

Yup. That's the main reason I avoid using them.

I bought into .net almost 10 years ago and never left. I think legacy tlds (com, net, org) tend to be more affordable and I can be motivated by money.

it’s really easy to set up secondary nameservers as a mirror

You assume a resolver will actually proceed to the secondary ns and not just give up when the first one is down. There is a lot of badly-behaved software out there.

I use Porkbun for registrar. Many are at cost with no low price intro to lure you in. I pay $17/yr for my unitedwith.me domain. Free private WHO IS, free SSL through LetsEncrypt, cheap WP hosting.

I like .earth as TLD - feels interconnected - and MXroute is great for email.

I have an old .com domain, and a new .farm domain, amongst a bunch of other I registered because they seemed interesting for projects I work on.

Both via Porkbun these days, with DNS via Cloudflare. I always split DNS from the domain registrar so if one goes dark, I can recover via the other.

legacy tlds (com, net, org) tend to be more affordable

Verisign are trying their best to make .com and .net less affordable. Their contract with ICANN is on a six year cycle, and it lets them increase the price by up to 7% for the last four years. Two years with no increases, then four years with increases. So far, they've always increased it the maximum amount.

Wholesale price has gone up from $6 in 2000 to $7.85 in 2020 (before this contract structure), to $10.26 now, and they're increasing it to $10.97 on November 1.

Having said that, it's still better than ccTLDs and newTLDs, where the registry can increase it as much as they want.

nearlyfreespeech.net
cheap & very simple interface. Not the best for a complete novice tho.

They should fix their broken resolvers then, that's not for me to work around. I don't think it's actually a big problem in practice though, because

1. my primary nameserver is actually fairly reliable, and
2. it looks like the nameservers in the NS query are in a randomized order (until the response is cached, of course)

Here are my basic criteria:

If you want the domain to be used long-term and tie your whole online identity around it, then stay away from all novelty domains. Only use top TLDs and ccTLDs.

Novelty domains can suffer unexpected price hikes across the registry or even be discontinued because they're basically commercial ventures.

Particularly avoid premium TLDs, because the registry can choose to hike up the price of specific domains separately from the base domain cost, just because they look "premium". You can have the domain priced up right from under you and come renewal time you have to match the new price or lose it.

The ccTLDs of the EU member countries are a very good idea if you're an EU citizen because they have built-in privacy for individuals (they don't publish their info in WHOIS) and are also subject to GDPR.

Your own country's ccTLD would be an obvious fit but price may be a consideration, some are more expensive than others. As long as you're an EU citizen you can shop around and get a domain from any other EU member afaik, as well as .eu.

I think .de, .nl, '.frand.ro` are the cheapest, or at least they were last time I checked this a few years ago.

Please note that .de technically requires a local German address for correspondence. You can choose to skip that but if the registry ever has reason to get in touch with you and you don't have such an address it's grounds for suspension. Some registrars (INWX for example) will supply their own German address for you for a small extra fee, but that brings the cost of the domain in line with the others so you might as well get a .nl to begin with.

I mean obviously, I would only use .biz or .cash - something that says "that cocodapuf, he's cash money"

Sorry, that seems to be a registrar, not a registry. What TLDs do you use? For example, Verisign operates .com, .net, .cc and .name.

.net, .xyz or .systems

same reason why i got flandish.hugedong.

I was fortunate enough to get a .io domain with my first initial and last name (I have a very common last name), and I have stuck with that ever since. I am a bit concerned with the political stuff around it, as the domain may be going away as some territory changes hands. But I think at this point there are enough large companies using the domain that I’m hoping it would be protected if the country ends up losing the domain.

ccTLD are best, as they don't have a contract with ICANN setting their service. While ICANN tries to be a multi-stakeholder, international organization with broad representation... underneath all the bylaws and process and so on it is a US company incorporated in California.

Probably the TLD of your own country is good!

If you don't care about that, then either .coffee or .soy for sure. 😉

Seeing as I am in Germany, my obvious choice was .de, and therefore DeNIC. I didn't really consider anything else, tbh.

While the domain at DeNIC is registered to my name, my name and details are not published and a WHOIS will only return my registrar.

The ccTLDs of the EU member countries are a very good idea if you’re an EU citizen because they have built-in privacy for individuals (they don’t publish their info in WHOIS) and are also subject to GDPR.

Still overthinking, I found CZ NIC might be interesting for security, but definitely not privacy.
https://www.nic.cz/page/383/faq/

Protect your domain or contact from unsolicited changes. Block them at CZ.NIC Association and no change will be possible through the registrar. If you want to change anything first it will be necessary to unblock a domain or a contact with CZ.NIC. These blockings are confirmed by an electronic or certified signature. Nowadays it is possible to block or unblock a domain online in the Domain Browser (on www.domenovyprohlizec.cz) - this applies only for validated accounts mojeID

On that website, it also mentions possibility to use EU ID for that purpose, so I'd be fine. But it doesn't allow hiding my address.
Indeed - "Why do you show my home address on your website? Can I disable it?":

All personal information is automatically hidden, except for the name of the organization, the name of the individual and the postal address. It is also possible to hide the postal address information if the contact is registered to a natural person (the Organization field is not filled in) and at the same time is managed via the MOJEID service and the contact is validated.

But the requirement to validate is:

As part of improving our services, we have replaced the former validation process with a new one — linking the account with the National Point for Identification and Authentication (i.e. getting access to public administration services), which also includes identity verification.

Which is this thingy: https://portal.gov.cz/en

Finally, if trying to sign up there I get to a FAQ that states this for question if it can be used by foreigners:

Yes, you can if you have in the Czech Republic permanent or temporary residence, visa sticker, temporary international protection or granted international protection.

So it seems while I could get better security than with other registries, my home address would be made public.

I generally stick with the main TLDs. Like com or net.

.com is fairly cheap and won't be on any blocklists, where some other TLDs can be.

But if you're in the EU then .eu probably makes sense to use.

Get a .nl and call it a day?