Ethernet is reasonable, but why not just have audio over Ethernet?
Or for that matter, USB2.0 instead of ethernet, and then you can have a hub on the monitor, a webcam, Ethernet over usb if you want, and audio return over usb?
My Pet theory for "Why did 100MbitOverHDMI not see traction" is, that -apart from linux/BSD- no other mainstream OS had reasonable-if-any support for meshed ethernet.
I always hoped for a future, where all the devices can ootb intelligently decide, over which of the available interfaces (Eth, Wifi, HDMI) to send data per peer device. It would substantially reduce WIFI congestion in lots of (MediaCenter) installations.
Same with CEC: "Windows doesn't support it, so why add it to GFX-card hardware?" ARC: Same deal
"Not-supported-by-windows" has led to the death/non_implementation of lots of useful things/tech not only related to HDMI. E.g. the Per-Port-Power-Control spec part of USB is only implemented by some rare USB HUB(-Chip) vendors, and never tested for in any review. On supported hardware it works great with `uhubctl`. Ubiquitous 802.11s Wifi mesh support is in the same boat.
As I say, my "pet theory". Happy to learn specifics.
For how amazingly useful it is... networking is kind of hacktastic at the protocol level.
It's a bunch of layers that don't know anything about each other, and any even slightly unusual setup is a nightmare of manual configuration.
It happens to do exactly what people do with it very well, central web services and some limited LAN stuff on the same subnet.
I almost think things would be better off without the OSI model, if we were to start over. Just one CJDNS-like mesh, with native support for encryption, firewalling, pairing and discovery, all in one place, under one version number.
Everyone talks about the flexibility but I'm super not convinced things like 6LowPan are a good idea.
Just being able to say "This isn't IP and has no way to get on your network" is a big advantage of things like ZigBee, in a world where nobody really trusts this stuff.
