You can't extend the size of the ipv4 packet headers unfortunately without breaking backwards compatibility, so we're stuck with with the address size. However

You can't extend the size of the ipv4 packet headers unfortunately without breaking backwards compatibility, so we're stuck with with the address size. However, we're pretty stupid how we use ipv4. A connection identifier is actually 48 bits, which is a massive pool. Currently nearly everything on the internet runs 32 bit ipv4 address with a 16bit port number. The vast majority of internet traffic waste the last 16 bits because of convention (Hey only accept HTTP/SSL connections on port 443! lol) We could extend ipv4 a couple hundred years by adopting SRV records, which would be a painless change compared to swapping ipv4 to ipv6. That puts the last 16 bits of the total 48 bits to work. The other part of the ipv4 packet is a bunch of flags that are pretty dangerous and nobody uses. Those might be able to be used as identifiers, but it'd be pretty not-backwards compatible. I'm a critic of the ipv6 transition because of the players promoting it in a certain way that is detrimental to the consumers. However, one thing ipv6 gets correct is the concept of network flows and the removal of a ton of cruft from the ipv4 packets. In that regard ipv6 is very well designed. Anyway, I will continue to turn off ipv6 and block it on all the devices and networks I operate, as it offers no benefit to me personally, only downsides, and it's just one more thing to monitor for privacy.