We want to clarify something from our last article, the IPv4 End.
TL;DR
The main idea of the IPv4 end is to allow people to create IPv6 only services without having to worry about the IPv4 users.
The part of disabling IPv4 users intentionally is something that we use to prepare moving away from IPv4 addresses, where services are on dual-stack devices that will change to IPv6 only
Longer version
We understand the concerns of the previous thread on reddit that end users will not be able to figure out what to do. But that is not exactly the main problem.
The main problem we have at the moment is that there are 2 parties waiting for each other:
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ISP won't move forward with providing IPv6 connectivity, because there is not much IPv6 content
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Content providers don't create IPv6 only content, because it will not be reachable from the IPv4 Internet
This loop goes on-and-on-and-on until it is being broken.
Making ISPs to offer IPv6
ISPs are only companies like everyone else with the addition of some IPv6 believers. The main problem is that if an ISP is "old" and does not yet have an IPv6 first policy, they need to put money to enable IPv6. To put money, they need to be motivated in some way.
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IPv6 believers will do it anyway
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ISPs will usually be motivated financially:
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Either by not losing clients
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Or by adding new clients
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So if the customers of the ISP A request IPv6 and cannot get it, customers move on to ISP B and then change will happen. Because
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ISP A needs to keep loss under control
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ISP B sees an opportunity to gain market share
Allowing people to offer IPv6 only content
On the other hand of the IPv6 adoption problem is people who create content and services. If you are a startup and you have a couple of computers in your garage, you can run your blog/service/anything just from home, offering your content by IPv6.
Basically anyone who wants to offer services on IPv6 only is currently in danger of "not being seen". That was the main motivation of creating the IPv4 End for us so that you can create IPv6 only content or services, but at least the IPv4 users have an indication of what is going on.
You can argue that the page no-ipv4-here is not perfect, or not even great. But then again, the whole service we built is Open Source and it can be changed on code.ungleich.ch.
IPv6 only services can be created by anyone of us and for a much cheaper price: you can even offer it on your notebook, on the go with an IPv6 VPN! As crazy as it sounds, the number of possibilities are unimaginable with IPv6. To help anyone who is doing that with visibility we even started to create a list of IPv6 only services.
The chicken or the egg
Obviously most of you have already reduced the problem to the chicken or the egg problem. However, in this case, the solution is a bit simpler in our point of view:
- ISPs are usually big and slow: change here takes a long time
- Users are fast and creative: we are in power and can drive the Internet
Free IPv6 stickers!!! (update 2019-02-07)
IPv6 Sticker!
We are giving out IPv6 stickers for free, if you are building a new IPv6 only service!
To get IPv6 stickers for free, you only need to let us know where it is and we will add it to the list of IPv6 only services!
