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IPv6 adoption is sadly a chicken or egg problem. Most residential ISPs near me provide IPv6 along with IpV4. But since so many of the internet still doesn't wor

IPv6 adoption is sadly a chicken or egg problem. Most residential ISPs near me provide IPv6 along with IpV4. But since so many of the internet still doesn't work with IPv6, and because ISPs have run out of IpV4 addresses to assign, they have started using CGNAT to assign a single public IpV4 to multiple customers. This means you can't self host servers of any kind which sucks. Some ISPs don't use CGNAT, and have therefore become popular with gamers, tech people, and so on. But I imagine this will change eventually. Hopefully if enough tech people start hating CGNAT and wish that the internet just worked with IPV6, they will push adoption elsewhere (as most people just won't care).

rodgerd 5y ago
Yeah, my ISP does an IPv4 (static is an extra cost) and a full IPv6 /56 assignment. Beyond that, though, I think a lot of the fundamentalism around "IPv6 should mean everything is always available, if you don't like that get gud at network security" has been incredibly counter-productive. IPv4 NAT has given a certain level of network security to consumers, and IPv6 defaulting to always-on, all-the-time is not a comforting story.
- kstrauser 5y ago
  But the same class of device that currently provides NAT to the end user could just as easily provide a default-deny firewall. It's not as though it's easier for Netgear to implement NAT than a basic firewall.
rstuart4133 5y ago
Well, I remember reading a blog post from someone who analysed IPv4 address pricing, and concluded it was increasing quadratically (ah, here it is https://www.retevia.net/address-pricing-2019-and-beyond/ https://www.retevia.net/address-pricing-2019-and-beyond/). The noise is so high it seemed such certainty seems a little out of place, but clearly it is going up and it's growth rate is at least linear and much bigger than inflation. Given that's true, what happens next is not so hard to predict. The price will continue to go up for a while, but then it will hit an inflection point. It's an inflection point because what makes IPv4 attractive is better connectivity. Network effects in other words. But once the real migration starts, connectivity will swing in towards IPv6, so an IPv4 address will be worth less than an IPv6 address. Which is to say it will be worth nothing. That translates into a rapid rise in price presumably artificially inflated by speculation, then the bubble will pop, the bull will turn into a bear, and the price will drop off a cliff. In other words, you will know the transition to IPv6 has happened when you see that price crash.
saurik 5y ago
There is no reason why you can't host something behind CGNAT: you just have to use NAT-PMP or PCP to allocate a public exterior port. The issue is then whether anyone on either side supports that... but it isn't really NAT's issue.

rodgerd 5y ago

Yeah, my ISP does an IPv4 (static is an extra cost) and a full IPv6 /56 assignment. Beyond that, though, I think a lot of the fundamentalism around "IPv6 should mean everything is always available, if you don't like that get gud at network security" has been incredibly counter-productive. IPv4 NAT has given a certain level of network security to consumers, and IPv6 defaulting to always-on, all-the-time is not a comforting story.

kstrauser 5y ago
But the same class of device that currently provides NAT to the end user could just as easily provide a default-deny firewall. It's not as though it's easier for Netgear to implement NAT than a basic firewall.

rstuart4133 5y ago

Well, I remember reading a blog post from someone who analysed IPv4 address pricing, and concluded it was increasing quadratically (ah, here it is https://www.retevia.net/address-pricing-2019-and-beyond/ https://www.retevia.net/address-pricing-2019-and-beyond/). The noise is so high it seemed such certainty seems a little out of place, but clearly it is going up and it's growth rate is at least linear and much bigger than inflation. Given that's true, what happens next is not so hard to predict. The price will continue to go up for a while, but then it will hit an inflection point. It's an inflection point because what makes IPv4 attractive is better connectivity. Network effects in other words. But once the real migration starts, connectivity will swing in towards IPv6, so an IPv4 address will be worth less than an IPv6 address. Which is to say it will be worth nothing. That translates into a rapid rise in price presumably artificially inflated by speculation, then the bubble will pop, the bull will turn into a bear, and the price will drop off a cliff. In other words, you will know the transition to IPv6 has happened when you see that price crash.

saurik 5y ago

There is no reason why you can't host something behind CGNAT: you just have to use NAT-PMP or PCP to allocate a public exterior port. The issue is then whether anyone on either side supports that... but it isn't really NAT's issue.