What would be the additional load if everyone ran a local caching recursive resolver like unbound?

It would need to be built into iOS/Android/Linux/Windows/MacOS but what would be the disadvantages?

I can see greater load on root servers but caching is specifically designed to reduce that.

I can see potential problems for CDNs and equivalent geo-based resolvers.

But are they really that bad?

To avoid hitting the root, don't send your queries there! Problem solved!

localroot.isi.edu

Bias: I created it, and am a author of one potential set of future specifications (rewrite).

Thanks, interesting, I like making my systems as stand-alone capable as possible :)

What is the primary difference between using an Unbound auth-zone (as described in the RFC) compared to localroot?

Id expect better geo performance because the geo domain is queried from the actual customer and not from some proxy that is hopefully nearby them