> Literally offers no upsides to the consumer, only potential downsides
Having globally routable addresses is a pretty big upside. For nerdy types, it means you can run web/game servers at home (i.e. without needing a credit card), which is a way for kids to develop their technical interests.
For the rest of society, getting rid of NAT is a requirement to allow seamless p2p apps to work without needing to use giant corporations in the surveillance business as an intermediary. Instead of being jerked around with Google moving people onto their 15th video chat app with potato quality, we have the necessary foundation to be able to directly connect with your counterpart. This could be completely seamless with e.g. a DHT to locate your contact's devices (or gossip if you can reach at least one that you already knew about, to maximize privacy) and uPnP or hole punching to their address to open your router's firewall.
NAT forces centralization for our foundational ability to communicate, which robs everyone of their autonomy in ways that are so pervasive it's increasingly hard to imagine another world. But that other world is still possible.
Having globally routable addresses is a pretty big upside. For nerdy types, it means you can run web/game servers at home (i.e. without needing a credit card), which is a way for kids to develop their technical interests.
For the rest of society, getting rid of NAT is a requirement to allow seamless p2p apps to work without needing to use giant corporations in the surveillance business as an intermediary. Instead of being jerked around with Google moving people onto their 15th video chat app with potato quality, we have the necessary foundation to be able to directly connect with your counterpart. This could be completely seamless with e.g. a DHT to locate your contact's devices (or gossip if you can reach at least one that you already knew about, to maximize privacy) and uPnP or hole punching to their address to open your router's firewall.
NAT forces centralization for our foundational ability to communicate, which robs everyone of their autonomy in ways that are so pervasive it's increasingly hard to imagine another world. But that other world is still possible.