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QUIC runs over UDP. In this sense it is more like a tunneling protocol than a layer 4 one.

Is there anything in the design of UDP that constrains what QUIC would have wanted to do? If it used a different ID in the IP packet, would it really change anything about the UDP headers?

I would say UDP is such a simplistic protocol you can actually see it more as a protocol-building framework than a layer in-and-of itself.

If everything is just datagrams, what good are datagrams? Are we forever bound to use deep inspection just to keep acceptable service in our networks?

Having a separate layer for data connections was a good idea for many reasons which have been clear for over four decades.

I'm not sure what you mean. What does UDP have to do with acceptable service? If you want to prioritize certain kinds of traffic, you either to do deep packet inspection, or you trust IP-level QOS info (which you probably shouldn't). There is no other way. No one sane prioritizes UDP in general, you prioritize things like VoIP, for which you anyway need to do DPI.

And separating data connections from encryption has in fact proven to be a a bad idea over those 40 years.

The difference seems pretty academic. Practicality >> purity, especially when trying to get new networking protocols deployed to ~4e9 people

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