Can the Internet work without DNS?

If we have an IP-based system of identifying nodes on the Internet why is there a need for DNS?

Although everybody else suggests that DNS is not necessary for the internet to work, I disagree. DNS is not necessary for an IP based network to work but for the Internet as we know it today it is absolutely necessary!!

If I register a domain name with godaddy and don't like godaddy anymore I can go to another provider and keep my domain name.

The same thing isn't possible with IP addresses as IP addresses are alocated to specific companies and are nothing that you can take with you.

Not only does DNS map human-readable names to IP addresses, it also decouples the client from specific details of the network endpoint it wants to connect to.

That allows providers of services to implement high availability systems and change implementation details without impacting their clients.

Absolutely it could! But you'd have a huge list of entries in /etc/hosts.

Seriously, though. "the internet" (the system of machines which deliver content to a user) would continue to work fine. "the web" (the collection of easy to find information transported over "the internet") would quickly break down because nobody (except the true geeks) would remember the IP Address to get to Google.

Because I don't want to remember that Google is 74.125.45.100.