[goodpoint]

...for an arbitrary definition of "practical".

There isn't a single world-wide authority that assigns names to people or companies, or plate numbers to cars or airplanes. It's partially federated and we accept the tradeoffs.

[immibis]

Humans can use ad-hoc disambiguation where needed - "it's the A1 Computers down by the lake" - but computers can't handle one name resolving to two different sites. When a1computers.com is registered twice, it won't automaticallychange one to a1computersdownbythelake.com and the other to a1computersbytheairport.com.

[goodpoint]

> computers can't handle one name resolving to two different sites

There's plenty of ways do to so: by configuration, by quorum, by bookmarking pet names on first use, or by asking the use (what every search engine does when people look up e.g. "netflix")

[preseinger]

I'm all for embracing the invariants of eventual consistency, but an internet addressing system without an authoritative (i.e. centralized) truth is practically useless.

[preseinger]

We're talking about name resolution on the internet. Some source of authority is required to keep the overall system sound. Said another way, if two people query the same name and get categorically different answers, or reliably non-deterministic answers, the system is unsound.