Video chat. File transfers without a third party host. Cell phones almost always only offer a public address over v6. Internet gaming. VPNs without address conflicts. Not being banned from Wikipedia because someone else with the same CGNAT ISP got banned.

For the average consumer they don't notice a difference. Both my home and mobile ISPs have said they have no plans to offer IPv6 connectivity because it's not a requirement.

Users don't care, and until a lot of them do ISPs won't do anything.

People can still video chat, play games and use VPNs without v6.

It usually manifests as gamers asking about "strict NAT":

https://support.xbox.com/en-US/help/hardware-network/connect... https://kb.netgear.com/19844/Why-does-my-Xbox-say-NAT-is-set...

Part of why video chat quality sucks is because the RTP traffic has to be sent through a proxy to deal with NAT, doubling load on the Internet and increasing latency.

> Why change something that works?

Because it does not work.

Want to run a public service with end-to-end connectivity? Go to your RIR to request an IPv4 block and be put on a waiting list.

Or break out your cheque book and be prepared to cough up $35+/IP for the privilege of global connectivity:

* https://auctions.ipv4.global

* https://ipv4marketgroup.com/ipv4-pricing/

* https://ipv4connect.com/marketplace

A friends company that was able to buy two /24s under $2K each and get them pretty quick.

When I signed up for a new data center internet connection, both my ISPs charged me something like $25/month for a /24.

IPv4 addresses are still relatively cheap to get.

Remember when IPv4 addresses were assigned/given out for free? Pepperidge Farms remembers. :)

When did the company purchase them? Was it a private sale or through a broker(?)? I'm curious as to the process, especially if it was more recent.

HTTP/1.1 also "works", yet we are moving to v2 (edit: more smoothly). Same for many other (low level) techs.

But maybe IPv6 is so low level that it has a lot more inertia...

Because we're running out of IPv4 addresses, and in a lot of cases, NAT doesn't work.

> Because we're running out of IPv4 addresses, and in a lot of cases, NAT doesn't work.

We have run out of IPv4 addresses. Past tense. Go to a RIR for some and you'll be put on a waiting list.

If you want a block of IPv4 space you'll be paying about US$ 30 per IP at the moment.

Because you want to use something better?