i feel like a lot of educational resources skip over Ethernet and most people only really know about TCP/IP . like there's a vague understanding that there's something underneath it, but it's just "oh, that other plane where you can establish TCP/IP communication. it's where you do DHCP i guess"

applications always speak TCP/IP but almost never Ethernet. i guess this is because most operating systems are tailored for Internet communications first and foremost. but like. on a local network you can kinda just speak Ethernet. there isn't a compelling, physical, hierarchical reason to need to do TCP/IP.

something that wasn't obvious to me for years (because many resources gloss over it) is that despite colloquially meaning "wired internet", ethernet is a protocol and wifi uses it. wifi is not "not Ethernet". i have been informed that this is only barely true if at all

everything over Ethernet being TCP/IP feels like the physical equivalent of everything over TCP/IP being HTTPS. like it's not bad because that's unambiguously just a good implementation of the next layer up the stack. but it just feels so uninteresting that we don't have hundreds of things all making use of Ethernet in unique ways.