I've heard a lot of people muttering about end-to-end as a design principle of the internet. And they're right: it is important for the internet's protocols to be transparent and use-agnostic. But I seldom see people doing anything about it; we treat the shameful protocols we have as untouchable, and just bolt stuff on without revisiting the design. Network effects seem to ensure that beyond a certain adoption threshold, you simply can't change poor protocols.

I am therefore happy to see two new-ish, and pleasantly simple and transparent protocols being muttered about, in areas which aren't yet completely pinned down: internet backplane protocol and factotum.