system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5 Why have we not run out of ip addresses?

With the massive growth in internet devices, shouldn't we have used up all possible ipv4 numbers?
gpt
We did, sort of. We have way more devices than ipv4 addresses, but a lot of them are using the same address and hiding behind a local network. For most broadband setups, your entire WiFi network is only consuming one public IP and it's using a whole bunch of local IPs behind your router.

This bought us some time. Ipv6 was invented to make sure this "never" happens again, it has a far (far far far) larger number of addresses.