DSR posits different solutions to many problems of communications and that means a lot of new code. Much new code is in the edge computers and several new specialized network services are needed. DSR suggests some solutions to these special jobs but tries not to over-specify them, hopping for organic growth. Economic incentives and accumulated reputation are proposed to supplant bureaucratic control—more opportunity for market mechanisms to choose between solutions.
A substantial political bootstrap was required for today’s wonderful Internet. Today’s Internet still needs political support. In Jane Jacob’s parlance, Internet is more a gurdian function than a commercial function.
There is an element of anarchy in the DSR ideas, even an element of survivalism. I am not a survivalist but I do have fun speculating on it.
DSR devotes little effort speculating what edge communications complexity might be abstracted away from typical applications. This allows one to speculate on what problems may be served by applications that delve into lower protocols. This included having some say about quality of service which today’s Internet makes very difficult. Today it is quite difficult to send your data over a path which excludes some political regimes. While most applications will use convenient conventional abstractions, others will get their hands dirty and solve problems not solved today. And incidentally I will be able to pay 3 cents to read an article.
Politics still swirls on ‘network neutrality’. Politicians want to set prices to avoid monopoly pricing. Except, perhaps, for the last mile there is no place for a communications monopolist to sit in the DSR world.