To be honest, other than running out of space, the length of an IP address has never truly mattered, because you don't typically use the IP address to access mi

To be honest, other than running out of space, the length of an IP address has never truly mattered, because you don't typically use the IP address to access microsoft.com, e.g. Also routing uses subtrees, so we could have had just grown IPv4 with an extra 4 octets too. Does every cold virus need an IP address, no. But on the other hand it might make sense to give every planet and asteroid in the solar system one.