Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems like a lot of technology transitions go smoothly, while others painfully drag on for a decade (ipv6, Python3). Are there any common root causes for the semi-failures? Has anyone written about why some succeed and some don't?
But is either Python3 or IPv6 really a failure? Sure the migration has been slow, but has still been rolling on pretty consistently forwards. There are no major reversal in the trends of either IPv6 or Py3k adoptation, and especially for IPv6 there is pretty much no alternative out there. Maybe just a decade is not all that long period and the tech community is too impatient due the historically rapid pace of changes…
If the answers are "No", "No" and "No", I would have to say that indeed, IPv6 really is a failure, after two decades and monstrous investment thrown at it, it has failed to solve any of the practical issues it was supposed to.
It's a gigantic failure, both in a costs vs. benefits approach, but exponentially so when considering the opportunity costs of being still stuck with IPv4.