The internet was designed with a simple, elegant principle: every device should be able to communicate directly with every other device. This “end-to-end principle” formed the foundation of the original internet architecture, enabling innovation and seamless connectivity. However, the explosive growth of internet-connected devices quickly exhausted the limited IPv4 address space, forcing the adoption of Network Address Translation (NAT) as a stopgap solution. While NAT allowed the internet to continue functioning, it fundamentally broke the end-to-end model and introduced a host of complications for modern applications.