1. Geopolitical and State-Linked Control of IP Resources
A central theme is the suspicion that nation-states, particularly China, are strategically acquiring IP blocks in Africa and other regions, often for large-scale automated (bot) operations. There is debate over the degree of government versus private involvement, with a strong consensus that the line is blurry in China.
- tokyobreakfast: "China and India have been quietly buying up gobs of African IP blocks - most of which are used for botting operations... The real story here is China and India have been quietly buying up gobs of African IP blocks - most of which are used for botting operations. I see it in my server logs."
- tokyobreakfast: "In the case of China, I believe it's government or CCP-controlled entities, and the end-game is something more nefarious. For India, IMO it's private industry. They're just trying to make a buck."
- landl0rd: "China does not have a meaningful distinction between private industry and the state. She also maintains a level of surveillance and control, particularly in the IT world, that makes this hard with some level of government sanction."
2. The Collapse of IPv4 Prices and the Role of Cloud Providers
Many users were surprised by the sharp decline in the price of IPv4 addresses, which is attributed to market saturation, the effectiveness of technologies like Carrier-Grade NAT (CGNAT), and strategic shifts by major cloud providers like AWS from aggressive stockpiling to cost-passing, which reduced demand.
- petercooper: "I was particularly intrigued by the ongoing tumbling of the price of IPs. After peaking in 2022, 'these days the low price of $9 per address is back to the same price that was seen in 2014.''"
- Fiveplus: "The collapse in IPv4 transfer prices is what caught my eye here, dropping from a ~$55 peak in 2021 to a mean of $22 in early 2026... This validates my hypothesis that the run-up in 2020–2022 was an artificial scarcity bubble driven largely by hyperscalers. AWS was right up there stockpiling before they shifted their pricing model... Once AWS introduced the hourly charge for public IPv4 addresses... their acquisition pressure vanished."
- JulianHart: "The CGNAT point is underrated. Carriers have zero incentive to move away from it - thousands of users per public IP, no transition cost... Makes sense the IPv4 price drop once mobile networks proved you can serve massive user bases with relatively few public addresses."
3. The Stalled Transition to IPv6 and Misconceptions About Security
A prominent theme is the frustration with the slow adoption of IPv6, driven by a debate over its necessity and security. Many users express a preference for IPv4 due to the perceived security benefits of NAT (Network Address Translation), which others argue is a misunderstanding and that stateful firewalls in IPv6 are equally effective.
- dlcarrier: "I'm glad that IPv4 still seems to have a bit of life left in it... the NAT-by-default of IPv4 effectively means that I get the benefit of a default-deny security strategy that makes it impossible to accidentally directly connect anything to the internet."
- johnmaguire: "IPv4 is not NAT-by-default... But that doesn't go away with IPv6 - the NAT does, the router doesn't, and the firewall shouldn't either... NAT is not the firewall."
- bigstrat2003: "IPv6 is clearly better (no collisions between address space and thus no NAT requirement), and it's perfectly accessible to anyone who actually tries... The problem with the v6 transition is that people have very inaccurate views on one or both of those points (usually they falsely believe NAT provides security benefits, or they falsely believe IPv6 is a difficult thing to implement)."
- autoexec: "IPv6 has failed at being better, being accessible, or both. Rather than punish people for failing to adopt something that isn't better or easy to get, either improve IPv6 so that it's actually attractive or admit defeat and start work on the next version that people will genuinely want."