[mchannon]

I researched it, and I don't have the specifics in front of me, but it looked like a massive corporate giveaway.

Perhaps it didn't feel like it as much at the time, since only huge corporations had the need for so many computers.

Companies like Merck and Ford, Universities like MIT, don't appear to have paid a dime for them.

[540297]

Back then I don't think anyone ever considered we'd use up the IPv4 address space and/or assumed that the migration to IPv6 would happen more more quickly, rendering IPv4 obsolete. It looks like most of the big blocks were all assigned prior to widespread consumer internet adoption.

[caymanjim]

Back then IPv6 wasn't planned at all. By the time the need for more address space was realized, v4 addresses were already a valued commodity and no longer given away on request.

[richardwhiuk]

It's worth noting that at the time for the value of an IP address block was pretty much 0.