Actually, bluesky has supported custom domains since the very beginning (the Namecheap deal is the part of this story that is actually new/noteworthy) and it is very widely-used. I am unsure what % of active users are using their own domain, but it is not insignificant.
The domain feature hasn't blocked dev on more important things. In fact this deal is (according to bluesky) their first attempt at something to generate some revenue, with the goal being to never have to use advertising, something that the users would in fact be grateful for and consider to be important.
Yeah, using your own domain name is an interesting solution to the nomadic identity problem. I still want to look at how Mike Macgirvin from Hubzilla/Zot is handling it, because he seems to be obsessed with solving this particular issue.
I was still naively thinking in terms of redirects from your old instance to your new one, but that's not going to help you if your old instance vanishes in thin air.
The domain feature hasn't blocked dev on more important things. In fact this deal is (according to bluesky) their first attempt at something to generate some revenue, with the goal being to never have to use advertising, something that the users would in fact be grateful for and consider to be important.