Platform-Bundled vs Own-Your-Stack: A Developer's Guide to Actually Owning Your Web Presence

A post on Reddit recently caught my eye — someone built an entire brand around a domain they thought they'd purchased, only to discover they never actually owned it. The domain was bundled with a website builder subscription, and when things went sideways, they had zero control. This hit close to home. Early in my career, I registered a domain through a hosting provider's "free domain" deal. When I tried to transfer it two years later, I learned the hard way that "free" meant "we hold the keys."