One danger in any market is the accumulation of power by one or a few players who corner the supply of a scarce resource and artificially inflate its price. While theoretically possible, this is unlikely to happen in the market for IPv4 addresses. There is a natural ceiling on the price that anyone can charge, which is determined by the cost of alternative technologies. In particular, higher prices for addresses would spur the use of NAT boxes and IPv6.

While theoretically possible, an under-provision of bread is unlikely given the obvious unmet demand among the general population, and the industry commitment to reserving a reasonable share of resources for this purpose rather than allocating all available inputs to more lucrative production. Besides, if bread should come to be in short supply, the people can just eat cake instead.

Rekhter, Resnick, Bellovin, “Financial Incentives for Route Aggregation and Efficient Address Utilization in the Internet” (1997)

Attributed to Marie-Antoinette,  Queen Consort of Louis XVI (1793)