[shambolic]

> I'd also guess that passing through a node might cause some slowdowns that kinda stack up.

Not really. Fiber has bandwidth to spare. It might add some latency tho, if there are a lot of hops.

> There still is a major privacy issue with peeps that are nodes.

Encryption is a thing.

> And maintenance is going to be a bitch.

Yes.

[piker]

Is it possible to encrypt the destination and source IP in a packet header? Honest question, and, if not, it seems like arbitrary nodes could monitor traffic to and from neighboring nodes and their source/destinations.

[shambolic]

Yes. There are various options from Layer 1 encryption to VPNs.