Oddbean

I don't think many people know just how centrally controlled most of the internet is. Hopefully nostr fixes this. nostr:nevent1qqsrtgv488fdwq3x6n0386c68lktjawwv4axsuut58te6jd26ednltgpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduhsyg8ga5me33hla0l6ppgp4su7yutx9073vrmg372vghtf9krk0hf5tgpsgqqqqqqsdt4fu2

Im not sure nostr can really fix this but also, domains are fairly open and free market. Don't have to use name chea. Icann is a centralized registry of domains for sure but they are adding a ton of new top level domains now so the market is getting even better.

Doesn't have to be Nostr. Any kind of resolver system that takes a name or hash and returns an IP will work. This is a solveable problem. And basically _easy_ to solve if you don't require the names to be global (and I personally don't think anything should be global)

If my machine and your machine can find each other peer to peer, then as long as we have each other's IPs, we can find each other's websites (without domains). If you say "I run Google.com" to a resolver service, and I ask that resolver service to route me to google.com, I'll get you (and whatver site you serve me). If I ask a DIFFERENT resolver service for the same domain, I might get a different website. Non-global. But this is fine and good. Maybe I actively want YOU to be my Google in the some particular context, so I use that resolver in that context... And when I want a different provider to be "my google" for a different context, I point to that one. Silicon valley can provide its own resolver and everyone can call that "default/global" if they want. But the global nature of it is just window dressing. There is no global, beev

So people would need to know more about resolvers to get to where they want to go? I would eventually hope for not needing IP addresses at all. I would love to just get stuff and send stuff based on my nostr keypair.

I could argue that this is where we are now. People "know" (unconsciously, via their browser and OS settings) certain DNS resolvers that are considered global / canonical. There's nothing stopping someone from choosing some wacky resolver that points domains to wacky IP addresses. Nothing stopping them, that is, except for the lack of user-facing settings and apps with good UX. Imagine you had a web browser that had a little drop-down next to the URL bar that let you choose between "default global DNS" and "my region's DNS" and "my social circle's DNS" and "my secret club's DNS". When you enter a domain you would (maybe) get different results depending on your DNS context... This is maybe a silly contrived example, but it would work today with just an added select box. You could imagine integrating something like this with Nostr lists or groups or something. It's just a lack of creative experiments preventing this

This could be a pretty cool thing to do at some point. nostr:nevent1qqs2yzejj0lgme7wj2f0enjdyd7hpus5n5964jhmeyxer3827vmzrvqpz4mhxue69uhkummnw3ezummcw3ezuer9wchsygpwl2n3twa5dh2mu6ma4rthqqnx6yt8fwgnhqtc4hd4ctnrmxrnxypsgqqqqqqs55pjaj