etc. And if/when there is a mass uptake of IPv6, IPv4 space will become as valuable as VHS tape: impossible to even give away.
and one of my 80's bands just released their latest on 8track... no MP3, no LP, no CD... an 8track. I hate them.
that the price of a scarce resource can only increase: how much is a LaserDisc player worth today?
depends on how badly I need to watch the ChuckJones pre-estate fight, can't get anywhere else but the laser-disk version of BugsBunny.
at predicting minimum and maximum prices relative to a hard currency, i.e. ounces of gold or barrels of crude, or Big Macs.
BigMacs are only hard if left out for 6years.. takes that long for the bun to toughen up.
P.S. My position is that IPv6 is the answer
I agree wholeheartedly. My personal opinion is to leave the IPv4 policies as they are. Any changes will be like re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. And will look bad to the outside world when they finally wake up to the imminent exhaustion of IPv4 space. We should stop worrying about IPv4 or speculating about what a future market in IPv4 might look like. [Though an open question is what the role of the RIRs might be in that market.] IMO, it's best to concentrate on IPv6 deployment and getting on with that migration.
pragmatically, there is a genuine need to retain IPv4 for the forseeable future - at least until significant software replacement is done. Too much depends on an IPv4 like thing (AAA, radius, SYSLOG, SNMP, etc) to expect wholesale abandonment of v4 in the next - say - 5-10 years. v4 just won't be wasted on endsystems :) (and Jim, you use of technologies that have been OBE'd in the commodity space was a joyful trip down memory lane.... ) --bill