We aren't. There's a variety of reasons people choose to use v4 (some good, some bad), but you don't have to.
The network my desktop is on doesn't use v4. It works. v4 isn't a required dependency.
The network my desktop is on doesn't use v4. It works. v4 isn't a required dependency.
$ wget https://github.com/
Resolving github.com (github.com)... 64:ff9b::8c52:7204, 140.82.114.4
Connecting to github.com (github.com)|64:ff9b::8c52:7204|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
$ wgetnull 'https://news.ycombinator.com/
Resolving news.ycombinator.com (news.ycombinator.com)... 2606:7100:1:67::26, 209.216.230.207
Connecting to news.ycombinator.com (news.ycombinator.com)|2606:7100:1:67::26|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Because there's such an incredible amount of v6 addresses. You could pay a trillion dollars per second for a /64 and still only pay $1.70/year for each address.
> Why is IPv4 the incumbent 30 years after IPv6?
Because IPv4 was the only choice until IPv6, and replacing the Internet's L3 protocol is hard and takes a long time.
PSA that news.ycombinator.com is 2606:7100:1:67::26 now.
That is all. Except for the part where it doesn't help us on IPv6-Never ISPs.