[AckermanMD]

Could IPv4 address exhaustion be staved by opening some of the currently unused /8 blocks? For instance, Apple has the entire 17.0.0.0/8 block. If IPv4 addresses are really becoming scarce and demand is going up, seems like Apple could dole out /24 or /16 bit blocks to RIRs and make some money - which they obviously like to do. So why aren't they doing it? Maybe someone more familiar with the economics of IP has an idea.

[jsjohnst]

There’s dozens of cases of this besides just Apple. Frustratingly, if you scan the legacy allocation /8 blocks (not done personally, but know someone who has), most of the ranges have no open ports on a majority of the range. So they literally are serving no justifiable (in my opinion) purpose.

[closeparen]

I did IT support at a car dealership where some ancient line-of-business software needed a public IP for every Windows desktop it ran on to function properly.

No justifiable purpose, sure, but I can only imagine the tons and tons of legacy line-of-business crap out there with assumptions like this.

[jsjohnst]

You nailed why I threw in the word justified intentionally. There’s plenty of reasons a public IP could be needed, but not justifiably (to me, your example perfectly illustrates that).

[Steltek]

I assume it's an asset that's only going increase in value because it's rare. Why offload it now when you'll earn more later?