[jen20]

> Unless people stop using IPv4, then AWS cannot sell those addresses. There is no incentive for the addresses to increase in value.

But if people stop using IPv4, the asset (billions of dollars by some accounts) becomes worthless... AWS are passing on the cost for public IPv4 addresses now, so there's even less incentive.

[supertrope]

AWS' business model is not speculating on IPv4 addresses. But the fact that smaller providers can't get IPv4 allocations coincidentally works in big cloud providers' favor (and incumbent ISPs). The slower you deploy IPv6 the longer you defer that cost and the longer you enjoy your advantage in address space capacity.