IPv6 is Overkill - or, why there are way too many IPv6 addresses (published 2019-10-01)

IPv6 addresses are 128 bits and that's a few too many.

Here's the deal: With the current IPv6 address size, you can assign each person 4.51 octillion addresses. Person, not organization. Little Timmy, yelling racial slurs at strangers in his room over Xbox Live? 4.51 octillion addresses. Little Afua, helping their parents dig a well with the Water Project? 4.51 octillion addresses.

If you can find a use for 4.51 octillion addresses, you've got a bigger imagination than I do.

Guess what old, "obsolete" standard has a reasonable amount of person-to-address ratio? MAC addresses.

MAC addresses, which are 48-bit, have enough IPs to give each human being 37,280. I still can't figure out how one would use all 37,280 addresses, but I can find uses for more of them than I could 4.51 octillion.

I'm sure in the future, we'll have enough people or devices to need 3.4 undecillion addresses. But today is not that day.