This may not sound terribly sexy but it was a big deal 40 years ago when ARPANET, the Internet’s pre-cursor, made the shift to how the majority of network traffic both internal and external functions. I have a moderate understanding of how TCP/IP works thanks to my livelihood so the easiest explanation I can offer is saying that the government, corporate and university mainframes comprising everything implemented ZIP codes to direct their communication.
It’s continuing to evolve too as we’ve run out of the the IPv4 system addresses and are slowly moving to the IPv6 system. Trust me, you only have to look “under the hood” of your computer’s or device’s settings to see if this is going. With all the private networks in action, you probably won’t see it for a while to come yet it’s happening as mundane gadgets need to connect.
I wish I had a time machine to see the excitement of the switch being thrown. Plus getting a personal e-mail in those days must’ve been a huge thrill. Meanwhile, I’d have to hold my tongue to avoid depressing all these brilliant computer scientists about how their hard work got hijacked into selling boner pills and enabling your gullible aunt to forward bullshit promoted by Fox News.