Phone numbers have moved from being direct as originally implemented
to being a level of indirection, thanks to a lot of behind-the-scenes
mucking about. The Internet introduced DNS to gain that same level of
indirection. Phone numbers are now portable; DNS names are portable.
I don't agree with that. Host names, and a means for translating
them to addresses, existed before DNS. Introduction of hierarchical
naming and DNS let the maintenance of this translation mechanism be
decentralized.
Hm, wasn't this thread started by a suggestion that so-called
addresses be assigned under centralized control?