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Comment by jongjong | Hacker News Reader

Speaking of DNS, I still cannot comprehend why we still rely on the current complex, aging, centralized, rent-seeking DNS.

It's one one of the few parts of the internet which could potentially be replaced over time with very little disruption.

The hierarchy of resolvers could be replaced with a far simpler flat hierarchy Blockchain where people could buy and permanently own their domains directly on-chain... No recurring fees. People could host websites on the Blockchain from beyond the grave... This is kind of a dream of mine. Not possible to achieve in our current system.

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I think this would make the squatting problem that we already have way worse. There would be bots buying every single remotely usable domain, and there would be no incentive for them to sell it unless they get an absurdly large offer.

I bought tombert.com in 2014 and forgot to renew it in 2015, and it was auctioned off by GoDaddy. For like six years, it was owned by squatters, and they wanted thousands of dollars for the domain [1]. I called offering the $100 for it, and they claimed that they can't go below $1400 because this domain is in "extremely high demand". I finally was able to buy it back in 2021, presumably because the squatter purged out domains that hadn't been purchased for N years and they wanted to save money.

Now, you could argue "see! You wouldn't have had to worry about it expiring if it were permanent on the blockchain", and that's true, but if someone else had gotten to that domain first, then I would also never get it. I think the only thing that keeps the internet even remotely fair in this regard is that domain names cost some amount of money to keep.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20160219161720/http://www.hugedo...

Yes, having some cost disincentivies some abuses that completely free attracts. If email cost a few cents to send there would probably be a lot less spam around

I'm pretty sure that is why Something Awful was successful. Since an account cost $10, and any abuse could lead to a ban, you very quickly filter out spam and people who are solely there to shitpost.

> People could host websites on the Blockchain from beyond the grave...

This is precisely why something like this isn't a popular solution lots of people are working towards. Domains broadly speaking aren't a finite resource, but usable domains using common words definitely are. As time marches on human readable/typeable "permanent identifiers" are going to have to go away. Email address, usernames and the like are all going to get recycled, just like phone numbers are. Domains are currently recycled and most people probably think that's a good thing (assuming they think about it at all)

Also the potential for a domain to get irreversibly stolen is not a good feature for the security of the users.

Let’s solve rent-seeking by building a new system that’s even more rent-seeking!

At least currently death dissolves bonds.

> People could host websites on the Blockchain from beyond the grave...

DNS is:

- simple

- battle hardened

- distributed

- affordable

blockchains are:

- essoteric, backwards, and not easily implemented

- new and unproven, frequently hacked

- effectively a ploy to centralize / redo Web 1.0 but owned by one blockchain

- ...waaaaaaay more about money and "owning something" than DNS is.

To bake an apple pie from scratch, you must first overthrow capitalism.

perfection

I'm not really interested in communism but I will support it if it lets me have a Blockchain-based DNS system.

All the arguments I'm hearing against a Blockchain DNS system are rooted in petty crony-capitalist thinking.

This kind of thinking seems to permeate most other parts of society... It's gotta stop.

"Oh but what if someone steals it"

This ain't gonna be much of a problem in a functioning society where the top 20 domain names doesn't hoard like 95% of the traffic.

"Oh but we don't want people to own domains permanently or else they will take all the good domains"

Um hello?? Have to checked this thing called reality? It's already the case! So happy billionaires have to pay their $20 per months to maintain their market monopolies.

I actually don't mind other people having more stuff than me but tired of petty people ruining good ideas and stalling progress to make a few bucks.

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