Reason to have both IP and MAC addresses?

As we already had the IP address to communicate a computer to the internet, why do we need the MAC address? The answer to this question is that every mac address is assigned to the NIC of a hardware device that helps to identify a device over a network.

When we request a page to load on the internet, the request is responded to and sent to our IP address.

Both MAC and IP addresses are operated on different layers of the internet protocol suite. The MAC address works on layer 2 and helps identify the devices within the same broadcast network (such as the router). On the other hand, the IP addresses are used on layer 3 and help identify the devices on different networks.

We have the IP address to identify the device through different networks, but we still need a MAC address to find the devices on the same network.