[ih] Memories of Flag Day?

[John Gilmore]

Jack Haverty via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> In the 90s, the world embraced TCP and got rid of all the other protocols.
> ... Some people have "picked up" IPV6, but many have not.

Here's the fundamental difference, as I see it.

In the 1990s, the TCP/IPv4 was competing with a bunch of protocols that
just couldn't match its features:

  *  They couldn't scale up to global scale (eg Netware).
  *  They required identical speeds at both ends (eg telco leased lines).
  *  They were only supported by one vendor's equipment (eg DECnet).
  *  They were only provisioned by one vendor (eg Telenet).
  *  They only worked for one application (eg The Source).
  *  They didn't network (eg RS232 cables, dialup modems).
  *  They didn't layer over or under other protocols (eg SNA).
  *  They didn't speed up on the same curve as Ethernet (eg Token Ring).
  *  They were custom niche protocols (eg Chaosnet).
  *  They didn't put you 300ms away from nearly everyone on earth.

As a result, TCP/IPv4 and Ethernet, as a team, took so much market share
from all those other protocols that they are all now historical relics.
When WWW was added, late in the game, it was the final nail in their
coffins.  When I saw Ethernet jacks appearing on the cash registers in
little shops, and URLs on billboards advertising underwear, I knew it
had won.

The situation for IPv6 is far worse.  It is competing with a highly
capable, cheap, widely deployed and well regarded competitor: TCP/IPv4
on Ethernet with WWW.  It can't mow down all the competitors by being
1000x as good/cheap/fast, on an increasingly compelling scale.  It's
maybe 2x as good as IPv4, or 3x if you can keep NAT out of it, but
trading in your whole infrastructure for a 2-3x win is not much of an
incentive.

By analogy, 240-volt power is better at some things than 120V power.
You could convert your house and your company to 240V power, while
everyone around you kept using 120V.  But: the step from NO electricity
to 120V in the early 1900's was a huge sea-change -- for lighting, for
motors, for radio and TV, for electronics.  The step from 120V to 240V
just means your coffee boils a bit sooner and your ebike charges faster.
Meanwhile, every time you buy a lamp from a local shop, you incur a
cost: you need to provision a 240V-to-120V plug adapter and check the
lamp's bulb compatability, rather than just slinging it into the back of
the car and plugging it in when you get home.  In some countries, 240V
was the original standard, so that cost is reduced or eliminated: if
everyone around you uses 240V then it's as cheap and easy as 110V.  The
Internet started worldwide at "110V" and was truly amazing; but only
nerds or people with specialized needs are changing out all their plugs
and fuses and bulbs and stuff to upgrade to "240V" IPv6, when it adds
only a small incremental improvement.  Even brand-new houses are
installing just one or two 240V plugs, for the stove and the electric
car, because the end user wins by having simple compatability everywhere
else, with what's already omnipresent.

	John