fiatjaf on Nostr: What I mean is that IP exists so we can locate other computers on the internet, ...

What I mean is that IP exists so we can locate other computers on the internet, right? But if you and I are connected to the same router we don't need the global IP network, we can have our own local routing mechanism.

But what we are not connected to the same router, but you are connected to v-router that is then connected to f-router? We could still have a something according to which your address is relative to me, like vitor.v-router.f-router.fiatjaf and so on.

And v-router could just announce to f-router who is "vitor" in it, so f-router can share that to me and my computer can calculate a route that goes directly to you.

(I'm just making this up now. How much bullshit am I talking?)

This gets impossible at scale, but that doesn't mean we need a central authority delegating IPs, we can still have relative addresses like above, except that calculating them is hard, but a coalition of decentralized routing servers could keep a database of routes and assist individual nodes in finding routes to anywhere.