[ppml] Proposed Policy: IPv4 Countdown

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: ppml-bounces at arin.net [mailto:ppml-bounces at arin.net]On Behalf Of
>Edward Lewis
>Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2007 11:29 AM
>To: alh-ietf at tndh.net
>Cc: ppml at arin.net; 'Edward Lewis'
>Subject: Re: [ppml] Proposed Policy: IPv4 Countdown
>
>
>
>There was a time when a bunch of us felt that the price of gasoline 
>should reflect the cost of the pollution it engendered.  If so, it 
>would discourage it's consumption and encourage mass transit or other 
>forms of transportation.  The big problem is "what does pollution 
>cost" and if you did collect the money, who would be empowered to 
>spend it and how would they on big air scrubbers.
>
>Today though we have been making progress in fuel efficiency and 
>cleaning up the atmosphere.  Not that we are done, etc., but, 
>something has bappened even though gas is still cheap, it is still 
>cheaper to drive into the city than take the metro.  What has been 
>used is "regulation" - something that we don't use in the Internet.
>
>It's an ugly word and something we fight all the time, but maybe it 
>there is something that can be done to move us off the still 
>functioning IPv4 network to prevent any bifurcation of the network?
>

Regulation is what happens when a problem CANNOT be solved by enough
people "doing the right thing".  It is the end result of a failure.

For example, we don't have laws that make it a felony to "take cuts"
in the line at a movie theatre because the majority of people "do the
right thing" and wait their turn.  Thus, no need for regulation.

But we do have regulation of the electric power industry in the US 
because when we tried deregulating it, assuming that people would
"do the right thing" we found that they would not, and we got Enron.

If ARIN and the other registries do NOT "do the right thing" and get
agressive about "vetting" the IP allocations, but merely continue to
act as "stewards" then we will have a failure, and regulation will
result.

Ted