> What's the alternative? Making no improvements at all, forever?
No, sadly. The alternative is what the entire tech world has been doing for the past 15 years: shove "improvements" inside whatever crap we already have because nobody wants to replace the crap.
If IPv6 were made today, it would be tunneled inside an HTTP connection. All the new apps would adopt it, the legacy apps would be abandoned or have shims made, and the whole thing would be inefficient and buggy, but adopted. Since poking my head outside of the tech world and into the wider world, it turns out this is how most of the world works.
>If IPv6 were made today, it would be tunneled inside an HTTP connection. All the new apps would adopt it, the legacy apps would be abandoned or have shims made, and the whole thing would be inefficient and buggy, but adopted. Since poking my head outside of the tech world and into the wider world, it turns out this is how most of the world works.
What you're suggesting here wouldn't work, wrapping all the addressing information inside HTTP which relies on IP for delivery does not work. It would be the equivalent of sealing all the addressing information for a letter you'd like to send inside the envelope.
Providers would just do Carrier-grade NAT (as they do today) or another wonky solution with a tunnel into different networks as needed. IPv6 is still useful in different circumstances, particularly creating larger private networks. They could basically reimplement WireGuard, with the VPN software doubling as IPv6 router and interface provider. I'm not saying this is a great idea, but it is definitely what someone today would have done (with HTTP as the transport method) if IPv6 didn't exist.
65536
> Who exactly is going to get everyone to switch to the new value?
The same people who got everyone to switch to IPv6. It's a missed opportunity that these migrations weren't done at the same time imho.
It'll take a few decades, sure, but that's how big migrations go. What's the alternative? Making no improvements at all, forever?