@ljrk @sindarina @miki Let me rephrase this in financial terms, maybe then I'll get across how important it is to not have random IP addresses somewhere in code, docs, or even blog posts.
Currently the entire 1.2.3/24 is unassigned as far as I can tell, probably because people used those addresses at large, and simply announcing the /24 (and you have to announce an entire /24 at a time, smaller routes won't be accepted on the internet) will probably net you an enormous amount of traffic. The APNIC Debogon Project for instance has the goal of reintroducing such problematic network addresses back into the internet by working with a variety of ISPs and other instances to remove something like old filter lists for networks that were once widely blocked. The filter lists probably aren't too much of a problem in this case, it's more a matter of the amount of bogus traffic you'd get if you announced that network, and considering it's stemming from IPs present in various documentation, maybe even defaults somewhere, it seems rather likely to me that the reintroduction of that network probably won't happen anytime soon (although some people would probably pay very well for that IP).
So let's get into the fun part; IPv4 address space is expensive. Very expensive actually. Some sources estimate around 50$-70$ per IP, and /24 blocks do seem to net one around 10k$. I'm not too involved in the financial part of networking so I'm not too sure how reliable these numbers are, but sources seem to be somewhat consistent in those numbers. Also last time I heard about this kind of thing companies would try to buy existing but failing other companies to acquire their allocations rather than buy them to avoid having to go through a bunch of reassignment and justification stuff.
In any case removing a good chunk of internet for something that is priced about three times my gross monthly salary, because people thought the IP looked better in the docs.… eh. I don't know about that.
Even better would be adding IP addresses from networks which have actual technical implications like multicast ranges or other reserved networks which could potentially¹ cause actual issues rather than just not working.
Then there's the part about potential security implications; you add 1.2.3.4 to your docs for a curl command that uploads some data, expecting people to input the correct address, but some people still just copy&paste it. Years later maybe. Maybe after the IP has been reassigned and maybe there is a webserver running on that IP now. And they just inadvertently uploaded some important, maybe even PII, data to that server, which may be on a different continent.… ohhh boi, don't we all love to get an email from a service provider to tell us they accidentally leaked some information.
I know that writing documentation is hard. So hard in fact there are people who specialize in doing this; technical writers. But embedding IPs, domains, or other internet resources you do not own to your documentation creates problems for someone, somewhere.
Just think about how you'd feel if a DDoS as a service provider decided to add your website/server as an example domain for their API docs.…
Things like these may seem like a good idea if you can ignore the consequences, but we all know you shouldn't ignore the consequences just because you're not affected by them.
@ljrk @sindarina @miki Personal opinion: if you're writing documentation in the assumption that people won't read half of it then I have a personal issue with your way of doing, because I would much rather you stop reinforcing that existing bias. The fallout of any form of text or information base trying to safeguard the people who won't even stop to read a single info box or bold written text is that people suddenly read news headlines and consider the entire article read. Or to read the first three words of a sentence and assuming they know the rest. This causes issues in all areas of life; prime example being the misinformation bias surrounding news because people don't bother to read more than the headline.
Making it easier to get away with not reading the important bits is part of the problem IMHO, not a solution. Not by a long shot.
@ljrk @sindarina @miki Personal opinion: if you're writing documentation in the assumption that people won't read half of it then I have a personal issue with your way of doing, because I would much rather you stop reinforcing that existing bias. The fallout of any form of text or information base trying to safeguard the people who won't even stop to read a single info box or bold written text is that people suddenly read news headlines and consider the entire article read. Or to read the first three...