914 karma · joined October 24, 2012
So standing by it: the article has nothing to do with IPv6 per se.
In case it matters for you: Compared to DO this service is running on a zero carbon infrastructure and your IP address is located in Switzerland.
Many of our customers are app developers (ruby, python, clojure, you name it) and they develop on their notebooks that are IPv6 enabled (usually a /64 or /48 per device).
To be able to share in-development state with other remote developers, the common thing to do would be to pass around a http://[2a0a:e5c0:...] url that was http only.
This is not only cumbersome (no one likes to type square brackets), but also potentially risky, as there is no MITM protection whatsoever.
To fix this problem we created has-a.name, because customers/developers now go ahead and just create a docker container and share it as https://2a0a-e5c0-...has-a.name with their co-developers.
Because our whole company consists of a bunch of Open Source Hackers we decided to make it public to allow others work around the same problem.
Even though we promise to never change the automatic resolution (that's work, doesn't make sense to do that for us), you don't have to trust has-a.name. You can register your own domain and replicate our setup and use your domain instead.
I hope that clarifies a bit the business model question.
That's a good thing, because maybe I don't want to be able to reached all the time. If you want to, you can add your IPv6 address on your phone, which is virtually always online (I actually do this on my phone).
Or put it the other way: if users don't care, they will be exposed to changes / forces they don't control nor want.
I think this is very similar to political activity: if you don't vote, your life will be more influenced by the opinions of others.
If you vote (care), then you can make a change
I agree with you that people don't want to maintain complex systems. But then again, running a git server or even cgit, is a matter of little minutes spent, especially if you use ready to deploy toolchains.
I also think you have a point in terms of equilibrium - people are in general more comfortable with something they know. And due to the long history of IPv4 shortage, people are used to having private IPv4 space only.
It is like animals in a zoo - we don't know anymore, how good the life used to be with public IPv4 addresses, we have grown up without them.
What I have seen from many discussions and visits in the last months is that IT startups are now reconsidering and embracing IPv6, because it gives freedom.
I'd also say the approach is not to directly replace facebook & co., but to think completely different. Why do I need a website to write to you? I can write directly to you, if both of us are on an IPv6 network.
Thinking different is the key for decentralisation.
The problem with the US is that data is being used against you, like recent events have shown.