Why smart contract names are not discoverable by default

Smart contracts on Ethereum are still mostly identified by hexadecimal addresses, even though they can have human-readable names through the Ethereum Name Service (ENS), which the article says has existed for almost 9 years. The article attributes this to structural choices, including wallets such as MetaMask and Base not reliably displaying ENS primary names for contracts, developers historically not naming deployed contracts, and ENS primary name mechanics that generally require the ERC-173 Ownable standard. It argues that discoverable contract identity is important for user security and trust, and it describes Enscribe, a project that aims to extend ENS to smart contracts and integrates with Foundry and Hardhat.