Why WHOIS needs referral-following at all

WHOIS isn't a single centralized database — each top-level domain registry runs its own WHOIS server, and for gTLDs, that server often only hands back the registrar's WHOIS server rather than the actual registration details, requiring a second query to get the real record. This referral chain exists because of how domain registration is structured: the registry (which manages the TLD) and the registrar (which sold you the domain and holds the actual customer record) are frequently different organizations. Following that chain automatically, up to a few hops, is what turns "query the registry and get a pointer" into "get the actual record," which is the whole point of using a WHOIS tool instead of querying the registry's WHOIS server directly and manually chasing the referral yourself.

Why a sparse result isn't necessarily a broken query

Since GDPR took effect, many registrars redact personal registrant details (name, email, phone, address) from public WHOIS output for domains registered by individuals in applicable jurisdictions, replacing them with a privacy-proxy service's contact information or omitting them entirely. That's a deliberate, compliant privacy behavior on the registrar's part, not a failure of the lookup — a WHOIS record that comes back with mostly registrar and nameserver information but little to no personal registrant detail is very often working exactly as intended, especially for domains owned by individuals rather than organizations.