Re: What's the revenue angle?
Well, if you're in the business of allocating IP addresses, going out of stock is a problem. RIPE, ARIN etc don't seem to be running out of cash though.
But strictly speaking, we haven't run out of IPv4 addresses. What has run out is the RIR's pool of allocatable addresses and it's ability to persuade holders to hand space back or use it more effectively. So some of the legacy /8s etc. Which got complicated by people deciding there's commercial value, ie the sale of Nortel's /8.
APNIC and AfriNIC had different challenges by being late to the party, cover large territories & populations and tended to push for IPv6. Most of their IX's made v6 a requirement for membership. Or at least some plan to adopt it at some point because in the early days, v6 support on core-type routers was problematic.
Then there was mobile. Who were big in pushing for v6 so every phone could have an IP address. Not that they need them, and many of the mobile operators don't use it. After all, that would give less control over how handsets are used. And being able to make a VoIP call to 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334 might be nice, but it's not exactly an easy number to remember. And EUI-64 functionality isn't necessarily a help given the mobile operator may not control the MAC address and has the IMEI/IMSI to play with anyway.
So for most users, it's not really an issue. They mostly care about URLs, email addresses, phone numbers. The IT department may care more, but probably want all external traffic routed/switched through a proxy/cache/firewall/compliance gateway and don't want their internals exposed.
But over 20 or so years providing Internet in wholesale & retail around the world, I've had many RFPs wanting IPv6 support, but only 3 customers actually getting assignments. And then they were mostly used so the IT depts could test & play with v6 support.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
