croft.click and the Paralysis of Possibility

I just bought croft.click.

There. I've said it. I've just purchased a domain that currently does absolutely nothing except perform a 307 Temporary Redirect to ewancroft.uk. It cost me £2 on a Black Friday sale (after I'd been eyeing it for a few months), and I'm already staring at it wondering what on earth I'm meant to do with it.

The renewal will be £12.17 including VAT after the first year, which brings my total annual domain costs to £22.96 when you factor in ewancroft.uk (£10.79). Not exactly breaking the bank, but it does add a certain... pressure to justify the purchase, doesn't it?

The Problem with Potential

Here's the thing about owning a short, punchy domain like croft.click: it feels like it should be something. It's too good to waste on a simple redirect, but simultaneously, everything I think of doing with it feels either too trivial or too ambitious. It's the Goldilocks problem of domain ownership.

I could make it a URL shortener for my own links. But do I really need that? I already have ewancroft.uk for my proper content. Do I need a separate domain just to save a few characters? (The answer is probably no, but the appeal of having croft.click/blog or croft.click/gh is undeniably satisfying.)

I could turn it into some sort of portfolio landing page. But then it would just be duplicating what I already have on my main domain, and maintaining two separate sites feels like the sort of thing I'd start enthusiastically and abandon by next Tuesday.

There's also the possibility of making it a personal link-in-bio type thing – you know, one of those single-page sites with all your social profiles and projects. But that feels a bit... redundant? My main website already serves that function, albeit in a more comprehensive way.

The 307 Temporary Redirect Limbo

The redirect is technically a 307, which is "temporary" in HTTP speak. I chose that deliberately because I genuinely don't know what I want to do with it yet. The 307 is my way of telling both browsers and myself that this is not the final state of affairs. It's a placeholder. A promise to my future self that I'll figure this out.

The question is: will I actually figure it out, or will this redirect still be here in five years? Will I even renew it?

When You Already Have a Home

Part of the problem is that ewancroft.uk already works perfectly well for everything I need. It's my digital home. It hosts my blog links (via Leaflet on the AT Protocol, hi!), displays my Bluesky posts, shows my now status, and generally does everything a personal website should do. Adding croft.click to the mix feels like buying a second flat when you're already perfectly comfortable in the first one.

But there's something appealing about the simplicity of croft.click. It's shorter. It's more memorable (arguably). It's got that satisfying clickable quality built right into the name. It feels like it should be for something quick, something immediate—a landing pad rather than a destination.

The Ideas I've Considered (and Abandoned)

Let me be honest about the various half-baked plans I've had:

A Personal Data Server: This one's been rattling around in my head for a bit. Using croft.click as the domain for my own PDS would be genuinely useful – a proper AT Protocol setup under my own infrastructure. The appeal is real: full control over my data, no reliance on someone else's PDS. The problem? I'd need dedicated hardware, constant uptime, proper backups... it's not a small commitment. And I've tried running a PDS before (twice, actually, both short-lived due to energy costs and the reality of leaving hardware on 24/7). Would this time be different?

A Git Forge: Alternatively, using it for a self-hosted Git forge like Forgejo or Gitea. Having git.croft.click or just using the domain directly for repositories sounds properly useful. But then, I already use GitHub for most things, and setting up a forge means maintenance, backups, and the question of whether I'd actually migrate my repos over or if it would just sit there looking pretty whilst I continue pushing to GitHub out of habit.

The URL Shortener: This one keeps circling back, doesn't it? Something simple, maybe using a basic redirect service or even a small Node.js application. croft.click/blog, croft.click/gh, that sort of thing. It would be genuinely useful for sharing links, and honestly, the domain is practically begging to be used this way – it's got "click" right in the name. The setup wouldn't be particularly complicated either. But then I ask myself: do I create enough content that needs shortening to justify even a simple setup? Most of my links already live on my main domain, and for the rare occasions I need a short URL, there are plenty of services that already exist. But maybe that's overthinking it. Maybe the point isn't whether I need it, but whether it would be nice to have.

The Project Showcase: A single-page site highlighting my GitHub projects. Sounds good in theory, except my GitHub profile already does this, and my main website has a section for projects anyway. This would just be... more maintenance for the sake of it.

The Link Hub: Like Linktree but self-hosted. Except, again, my main website already serves this function via Linkat. And honestly, do I really need another page that says "here's my GitHub, here's my Bluesky, here's my blog"? That information is already easily accessible.

The Experimental Playground: This one's tempting. A place to test out new web technologies, design ideas, or coding experiments without messing with my main site. The problem is I already do that sort of thing locally or in dedicated repositories. Would I really use it?

The Personal API Endpoint: Now we're getting silly, but I've considered making it some sort of personal API – maybe returning my latest blog post, current status, or other dynamic information in JSON format. But who would actually use this? And more importantly, why?

The Comfort of the Status Quo

There's something oddly comfortable about the current state of affairs. The redirect works. It's technically correct (the best kind of correct, as they say). If someone does stumble across croft.click, they'll end up at my proper website anyway. No harm done.

Perhaps the problem isn't that I can't decide what to do with it – it's that I've already decided, unconsciously, that the redirect is what I want to do with it. It's a shorter entry point to my main domain. A secondary door to the same house.

The 307 status might say "temporary," but maybe some temporary states are meant to last.

The Paradox of Digital Real Estate

Owning domains is a bit like collecting things you might need someday. You buy them when they're available and reasonably priced (Black Friday sales are dangerously good at this), telling yourself you'll definitely use them for something. Then they sit in your registrar account, accruing renewal fees, while you occasionally remember they exist and feel a vague sense of guilt about not using them "properly."

But what is proper use, really? Is redirecting to my main domain a waste of that £2 purchase? Or is it actually serving its purpose—providing an alternative, shorter way for people to reach my content? When the renewal comes around next year at £12.17, will I feel differently about it?

I think I've been so concerned with finding a "good enough" use for croft.click before I've even properly set it up that I've overlooked the fact that maybe the redirect is fine for now. It's not sitting idle and returning 404s. It's actively pointing people to where my actual content lives. That's something, at least.

Maybe This Is Fine

Writing this has been oddly therapeutic, if I'm honest. I've only just bought the domain and I'm already spending mental energy trying to figure out what croft.click should be. But maybe I need to give myself permission to not know yet. To let it be a redirect whilst I figure things out.

Perhaps the paralysis of possibility is really just the pressure of a fresh purchase. The idea that every domain must serve some grand purpose from day one, that redirects are somehow "wasteful," that digital real estate must be maximally utilised immediately or it's a failure.

But that's nonsense, isn't it? Sometimes a redirect is just a redirect. Sometimes the short version is simply meant to point to the long version. There's no rule that says every domain needs to be a fully-fledged application or service.

The Plan (Or Lack Thereof)

So here's where I've landed, about seven hours after setting up the domain: I'm going to leave croft.click as it is for now. The 307 can stay. The redirect to ewancroft.uk can do its thing whilst I figure out if I want something more. And if someday I have a genuinely brilliant idea for what to do with it—something that doesn't feel like busywork or duplication—then I'll reconsider.

Until then, I'm making peace with not knowing. The redirect isn't a failure. It's not even really a placeholder. It's simply what croft.click is right now: a shorter path to the same destination.

And honestly? For a domain I've owned for less than seven hours, that's perfectly fine.