> the folks who run the tz db definitely know what they're doing

It's one guy. He demonstrably does NOT know what he's doing.

> I always prefer `US/Eastern`

As you should. It's the actual name of the timezone as published by the entity that defines it. Outside of the goofy definitions in the tz file it's what everyone living _inside_ of that timezone would call it and see it referenced as.

To call this "backwards" is an absolute insult to civil time keeping and drives me insane.

> doesn't that make more sense?

I always thought it should be served through DNS. Then each country can just define it's own TZ record type and embed it at the root of their country code domain and could expand on it however they like.

eastern.timezone.us

Also, since domain names have punycode for internationalization, you could actually call timezones in countries like Mexico what they're actually named for end users.

This is a fantastic idea.

You could use this to promulgate SRV records that direct you to a country’s authoritative time servers, too.