[ElectricalUnion]

> IPv4 with NAT gives us a max of 96 bits of address space

But then you need NAT piercing everywhere for even "basic use". How is not being able to connect to things "usable"?

By that same metric, you also get a bare minimum, naive count of of 144 bits of IPv6 address with 2 layers of link-local address + all ports.

144 is much larger that 96.

Even the naive 64 bits "just use one layer of link-local" is still larger that the entire current 32-bits of IPv4.

[yjftsjthsd-h]

I think the point is that 96 is quite enough to not run out. Which is plausibly fair, if you can actually get that many bits (or close enough to actually cover everyone) and can deal with the ugliness of NAT. It's especially fair, I think, to argue that the reason that IPv6 adoption has been so slow is because IPv4+NAT is good enough for most people. Just because IPv6 is better doesn't mean that people will want it if the old option can be hacked up to keep working.

[labcomputer]

So is 56. That’s about 9 million addresses for every human on earth.

And, of course OP is wrong about 56 anyway, but so it goes

[yjftsjthsd-h]

Oh, sure; arguing that IPv6 doesn't, in any way shape or form, have enough addresses would be extremely misguided. I was reading it as "IPv4 already has enough address space (if we include NAT) so we don't need to deal with v6".