I built my own root DNS so I could stop renting names
The author describes building a custom root DNS system called 'The Moshpit' to avoid the recurring costs and limitations of traditional domain registration. The system allows users to claim and manage their own namespaces independently of ICANN-regulated registrars.
Why it matters
It challenges the centralized control of the internet's naming infrastructure and highlights the growing desire for decentralized digital ownership.
How this was written: drafted with an AI assistant from my own notes, then edited by me.
Every idea I have costs twelve dollars a year before it exists. Not hosting - the name . I pay a registrar, who pays a registry, who operates a top-level domain under a contract with ICANN, and at the end of that chain I get a string of text that I do not own and never will. I lease it. Miss a renewal notice in a spam folder and somebody who has never heard of my project owns my namespace and wants four figures for it back.
Multiply that by the number of half-finished things in my home directory and it is a subscription to my own imagination. So I stopped paying it and started building the other end of the stack.
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