So in what way exactly does the Internet as a whole benefit from allowing IPv4 addresses to be traded in a free market?
Compared to a world where you can't get IPs at any price? Seems pretty obvious: you can get IPs.
I would like to know how we avoid ending up in a world where a few large companies control all the available IPv4 addresses (which they don't really need) so they can rent them to the rest of us at exorbitant prices.
It seems like the cloud is already going there with only a few large providers. All I can suggest is to buy your IPs now before Amazon does.