Or use a federated contact book, such that a site operator could openly publish a memorable name, and those names could be propagated to others and given aliase

Or use a federated contact book, such that a site operator could openly publish a memorable name, and those names could be propagated to others and given aliases. ...so then the nodes operated by the FAANGs would be authoritative just by virtue of popularity. Dangit. I guess we're back to HOSTS files.