Hi Daniel,
So please, tell me why someone will require/request public ip space if is not to be publicly routed on "the global internet". And that is a real question since I saw that "IP addresses allocated/assigned do not have to be routed on 'the global internet" several times and cant understand why.
For example if running a closed network that interconnects with other organisations but not with the whole internet. For example a closed network between banks or municipalities that needs guaranteed globally unique addresses to avoid clashes with the networks of the connected organisations. The network itself is not connected to the internet but systems at the participating organisations probably are. Therefore you need globally unique addresses. Another example might be a car manufacturer that wants addresses for the internal networks of the cars they manufacture. You probably don't want your cars systems to be connected to the global internet. Having connectivity to some other systems (monitoring, fleet management etc) might be useful though. And those systems are connected to the internet so the cars need globally unique addresses that don't overlap with anything used on the internet or within the companies that run the remote systems. And these are just some things that I can think of now. There certainly will be others. We have a registry to make sure we hand out unique addresses to organisations so no clashes occur and so we know who is responsible for which addresses. Not to limit the kinds of networks and the way those networks are connected to each other. Cheers, Sander PS: This is nothing new for IPv6, networks like this exists in the IPv4 world as well