Other purposes might offer the user no benefit, and might even be undesirable for users
As a result, some users don't send EDNS subnet. It's always been optional to send it
Even public resolvers, third party DNS services, like Cloudflare, recognise the tradeoffs for users and allow users to avoid sending it. Popular DNS software makes compiling support for EDNS subnet optional
Archive.today wants/needs EDNS subnet so bad it tries to gather it using a tracking pixel or it tries to block users who dont send it, e.g., Cloudflare users
Thus, before one even considers all the other behaviour of this website operator, some of which is mentioned in this thread, there is a huge red flag for anyone who pays attention to EDNS subnet
As with almost all websites repeated DNS lookups are not an absolute requirement for successful HTTP requests
There are some IP addresses for archive.{today,is,md,ph,li,...} that have continued to work for years
"Geolocation" as a justication is ambiguous
Why a need for geolocation
Geolocation can be used for multiple purposes
"DNS performance" is only one purpose
Other purposes might offer the user no benefit, and might even be undesirable for users
As a result, some users don't send EDNS subnet. It's always been optional to send it
Even public resolvers, third party DNS services, like Cloudflare, recognise the tradeoffs for users and allow users to avoid sending it. Popular DNS software makes compiling support for EDNS subnet optional
Archive.today wants/needs EDNS subnet so bad it tries to gather it using a tracking pixel or it tries to block users who dont send it, e.g., Cloudflare users
Thus, before one even considers all the other behaviour of this website operator, some of which is mentioned in this thread, there is a huge red flag for anyone who pays attention to EDNS subnet
As with almost all websites repeated DNS lookups are not an absolute requirement for successful HTTP requests
There are some IP addresses for archive.{today,is,md,ph,li,...} that have continued to work for years