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IPv6 just turned 30 and still hasn’t taken over the world, but don't call it a failure (www.theregister.com)

submitted 1 week ago by cm0002@no.lastname.nz to c/networking@sh.itjust.works

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In the early 1990s, internetworking wonks realized the world was not many years away from running out of Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) addresses, the numbers needed to identify any device connected to the public internet. Noting booming interest in the internet, the internet community went looking for ways to avoid an IP address shortage that many feared would harm technology adoption and therefore the global economy.

A possible fix arrived in December 1995 in the form of RFC 1883, the first definition of IPv6, the planned successor to IPv4.

The most important change from IPv4 to IPv6 was moving from 32-bit to 128-bit addresses, a decision that increased the available pool of IP addresses from around 4.3 billion to over 340 undecillion – a 39-digit number. IPv6 was therefore thought to have future-proofed the internet, because nobody could imagine humanity would ever need more than a handful of undecillion IP addresses, never mind the entire range available under IPv6.

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[–] nonentity@sh.itjust.works 21 points 6 days ago (1 children)

My observations around the lack of deployment of IPv6, and many other iterative technical refinements, is the majority of those who make technical decisions today are so thoroughly abstracted away from roles which understand the need and benefit of it.

‘IT’ has become mature to the point that technical competency has been neutered by economics being granted an unchallengeable veto over its design and implementation.

Until the world recalibrates and suppresses economics to an appropriately subservient status, we won’t see properly robust technical advances again.

[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

What do you mean by economics in this context?

[–] nonentity@sh.itjust.works 4 points 5 days ago

It’s a bit convoluted, but…

I consider economics to be the control mechanism which filled the void in society vacated by religion after the enlightenment.

Finance replaced mythology.
Banks and insurance replaced cathedrals and churches.
Economists replaced the clergy.
GDP replaced God.

Basically economics, as an intellectual discipline, is far closer to theology than physics. Given that, I don’t respect the positioning of economics as dictating the function of legitimate fields.