In Plan 9 you did have a real (synthetic) /net, and could do that and more from any program. You could even mount /net from another machine via 9P protocol and have an instant VPN...
9front lets you play with that on Linux.
Some Plan 9 like /net things are visible in Go libraries... (Rob Pike legacy)
No one mentioned Upspin? A global file namespace (URL, but better...) and protocol to isolate public data users from private governance and storage, by gurus like Rob Pike. https://github.com/upspin/upspin