> What an embarrassing failure of economic reasoning.
1. IPv4 addresses are overdemanded and undersupplied.
2. IPv6 addresses are practically limitless and will serve the same purpose once we switch over.
3. We should switch to IPv6 ASAP.
Where's the economic flaw?
(Also, it should be pointed out that allowing trades on IPv4 would not decrease availability, it would only increase it: Right now, you can't switch the owner of /x blocks without IANNA approval, so right now you have no choice but to push for switching to v6, whereas with trading you could waste money on v4 instead. Moreover, this would encourage the companies with the most money to buy IPv4 blocks rather than invest in switching over to v6, which would slow down the process for everyone since they're the biggest companies. TLDR -- force investment in IPv6 not IPv4. There's also a fairness issue since these IPv4 blocks were originally allocated for free -- should MIT be able to make billions on their block?)
Not any more. Within the ARIN region it's legal to straight-up sell addresses as long as the buyer is actually going to use them (people argue about this point a lot but it doesn't seem like a big deal IMO).
1. IPv4 addresses are overdemanded and undersupplied.
2. IPv6 addresses are practically limitless and will serve the same purpose once we switch over.
3. We should switch to IPv6 ASAP.
Where's the economic flaw?
(Also, it should be pointed out that allowing trades on IPv4 would not decrease availability, it would only increase it: Right now, you can't switch the owner of /x blocks without IANNA approval, so right now you have no choice but to push for switching to v6, whereas with trading you could waste money on v4 instead. Moreover, this would encourage the companies with the most money to buy IPv4 blocks rather than invest in switching over to v6, which would slow down the process for everyone since they're the biggest companies. TLDR -- force investment in IPv6 not IPv4. There's also a fairness issue since these IPv4 blocks were originally allocated for free -- should MIT be able to make billions on their block?)