IPv6 Thought Experiment

Wed Oct 2 21:04:09 UTC 2019

Antonios Chariton wrote on 02/10/2019 17:33:
> What if, globally, and starting at January 1st, 2020, someone (imagine a 
> government or similar, but with global reach) imposed an IPv4 tax. For 
> every IPv4 address on the Global Internet Routing Table, you had to pay 
> a tax. Let’s assume that this can be imposed, must be paid, and cannot 
> be avoided using some loophole. Let’s say that this tax would be $2, and 
> it would double, every 3 or 6 months.

Interesting idea.  Let's say it started off at $2 / month and doubled 
every 3 months.  At the end of month 12, it would be $32/month.  After 5 
years, we'd be talking about just over $2 million per IP address per 
month, i.e. a little over half a billion dollars per /24.  In 10 years, 
that would increase to 562 trillion dollars per month for a /24.

Soon, you'd be talking about real money.

Please let me know if you wish to push ahead with this idea and I'll 
humbly offer to act as middle-man for taxation for a very simple and 
modest 1% of all transaction fees, or 0.94% if you can guarantee an 
exclusive deal.  Serious replies only please.

Nick