I mean, net is supposed to be open on the principle and while this sort of 'gatekeeping' is thankfully nearly nonexistent, it can be quite a nasty surprise whenever you do encounter such 'gatekeeping'. Off from the top of my head, the only instance of such I have personally encountered happens to be on a 'chan of all things.
IPv6 is the current version of Internet communications protocol. If I understand the OP correctly, they're using IPv4, which was the standard at the time the Web went mainstream, but its 32-bit architecture means it's almost out of unique addresses.
The only reason I can imagine needing IPv4 is if your computer's a relic.
And so this means we will be friends in the afterlife?
It's still the practice to support both IPv4 and IPv6. Some people move on without continuing support for IPv4, I suppose. I don't know that it's specifically gatekeeping on purpose, even though it acts that way.
-- BK
