[drzaiusapelord]

This isn't really true. ARIN keeps requesting the few unused large blocks from hoarders, but that's a dry well now for the most part. What happened was the cost per IP for businesses went up. We used to get huge blocks for free or cheap but now have an economic cost to keep usage low.

Also, some cell carriers, foreign carriers, etc are IPv6 with v4 gateways handling non-v6 traffic, so a lot of the demand that would have exhausted v4 completely just went v6 to avoid the hassle. Big roll outs can't expect v4 to work for them, so v6 is now the default for many of these carriers who are told by ARIN to go suck a lemon.

What you're seeing is a very slow and ugly move to v6 that's just enough not to cause a v4 panic. This is just the way its going to be for a long time. No one is just going to go to v6 as long as their existing v4 IP's are okay. They'll just go v6 when their requests for /8's, /12's, and /16's get denied.