The domains, as many as .com, .org, .de, .net, etc. They have marked our videos to this day. But more and more they have more abusive prices. First of all, let's put ourselves in context.
At the beginning of the internet the only way to access or connect to a web server was through its IP address. That was fine for scientists and engineers, but for the internet to reach the general public a change was necessary, changing those numbers into easy-to-remember words. This is what is commonly known as "domain names". Instead of accessing a number, we can access "publish0x.com", which is much easier to remember, more intuitive, more comfortable.
This is possible thanks to ICANN, a non-profit organization that records on its servers which domain points to which IP address of a server.
So when someone types in the browser "publish0x.com" or when we log into Google when we open our browser, it is ICANN who says which server to connect to for that name. ICANN has received a lot of criticism so far for being headquartered in California and under some control of the United States. Under Barack Obama, he ceased to be so to silence such criticism. Perhaps that problem that ICANN was not under the control of any country has been slightly resolved because the rest of the countries ask that it be politically neutral.
Although obviously while it is based in the United States they will use it as any other country would. That's not even ICANN's only problem. In 2019, when ICANN allowed ".org" domains to go up in price each year, having sold their management to a third party, the same happened with dot-coms. And it is that in the end, if an organization, be it an NGO, a state or a private company, has a monopoly, the tendency will be to abuse it and raise prices. The states do it, charging extremely high prices for miserable and poorly managed public services since the state has a monopoly on violence, it is done by companies with artificial monopolies in the absence of competitors (usually due to privileges granted by the state).
The only way that an organism that owns a monopoly does not abuse its position is: that it has competitors who pressure them, it would be the case of the google monopoly, where it is a monopoly pressured by a dozen powerful competitors. And the other way to avoid abuse is for the state to put limits on that abuse. But the second option does not prevent the state from being the one who abuses or even instead of putting limits on it, granting them privileges, as is the case in many countries with energy, telephone, transport, education companies, etc. But what if this was all about to change forever?
The problem with domain names is that it is difficult to compete against ICANN since the value lies in the network effect. In fact there are many alternatives to ICANN, from the .tor naming system to Freenet. But nobody includes a call to these domain systems in their browsers, as there are no incentives to do so.
I want to tell you about the ".eth" domains, they are domains recorded in the Ethereum blockchain through a smart contract called "ENS Domains". The idea is that our browser or wallet calls that smart contract that will do the same job as ICANN: name resolution. So a wallet address that can host a cryptocurrency wallet or website, etc. It could be called simply as a name. ENS Domains has already been integrated into many wallets such as Coinbase Wallet, Trust Wallet, Metamask, etc. But it also has integration in conventional browsers like Opera and Brave. Factory integration, right from the start. With extensions it can be integrated into any other browser: chrome, firefox, etc.
The idea is simple: replace ICANN with computer code. Instead of people deciding how the organization works and instead of servers in a building in California, what there would be is a smart contract, a decentralized application that runs unstoppably on the thousands of computers running Ethereum. Instead of relying on people, we would trust code that runs in decentralized consensus, with the code remaining immutable.
An immutable code cannot decide to raise prices or grant benefits to any government or private third party companies. Today there are alternatives to ENS Domains that work in other blockchains such as the domains in Stacks with their ".btc", the Solana domains created in Bonfida with their ".sol", etc. But I focus on ENS Domains as it is the one that has achieved the most network effect and is surely the most solid project in this sector.
The ENS Domains would also serve for wallet names instead of sending ether or usdt to an ethereum wallet called: 0x5je3e3rg43 …… it could be called “Sarah.eth”, and that's it. This can already be used in hundreds of ethereum wallets with millions of users. In addition, decentralized domain names can be combined with decentralized "storage" such as the ProtocolLabs file system which works with the cryptocurrency "filecoin", in short it is a public file system that works in a decentralized way, an intuitive way to understanding it is as if it were the “torrents” or the “emule” protocol. It is not the same but it has a certain similarity. People get their documents and pay in filecoin. And a series of "Miners" store it.
The result? Try using the Brave or Opera browser, either on your computer or smartphone. Or try using an ethereum wallet on your smartphone like Metamask or Status. And type in the browser for example "uniswap.eth". The "uniswap web" will load quickly. But is it really Uniswap.com? Is it really a website?
When you access Uniswap.eth through one of the previous browsers, your browser instead of calling your local domain system (Telefónica, Vodafone, Verizon, etc.) will be calling a server that searches the ENS Domains smart contract the "uniswap" domain, hosted on the Ethereum blockchain. ENS Domains has pointed out that the owner of the wallet who has bought "uniswap.eth" points to a wallet or to a storage hash (address), then your browser gives you that hash and downloads it.
What we see is nothing more than a text file. It is not a website really. And we have not accessed using "http" which is the internet protocol. But IPFS, a new protocol developed by ProtocolLabs that is much faster. So the domains are no longer hosted on servers but on blockchain, the websites are no longer web pages but files downloaded from decentralized protocols, and finally, if we use “uniswap” which is a smart contract, we will be using a decentralized app on Ethereum.
As you can see, at no time have we accessed any server except for us to resolve the domain name of "uniswap.eth" and which is dispensable because anyone can download the ethereum blockchain and set up their own server or even with an API to ENS Domains simply.
What is the result of this? A website like Uniswap.com can be closed, Google.com can be closed. Uniswap.eth cannot be closed, as its smart contract, IPFS File System cannot be closed or the Ethereum blockchain where it is hosted cannot be closed to where “uniswap.eth” points.
This is what I call the "serveless" era.
We no longer trust people but code. Permission to open a website is no longer required. Webs are files. Apps no longer run on a server but on thousands of computers at the same time.
Las consecuencias de esto, no son una mera mejoras tecnológicas. Las consecuencias de esta tecnología transciende la economía y la sociedad humana. Lo veremos en los próximos años.
