[ppml] Markets, pricing, transparency, 2008-2 / 8.3.9

[David Farmer]

This got me thinking a bit, thanks Randy and Tom, I was hoping to avoid 
doing that today :) 

At least one supposed source of address that I've heard talked about in this 
is Legacy Holders.  Many Legacy holders are end user entities, yes there 
are other types of entities, but lets discuss end user entities for a moment.  It 
is possible that a end user would enter into a cash transaction, then your 
pricing and transparency questions are probably valid.  However, it is also 
possible that an end user might prefer to enter into a barter transaction, this 
could be for any number of non-cash considerations, or a combination of 
cash and non-cash considerations.  

An easy example would be an end user trading address-space with an ISP 
for service.  However, there are many other possibilities.  In this case what 
value should be recorded?  The retail value of the service, or the marginal 
cost of the providing the service by the ISP?  The cost to the buyer or the 
value to the seller, which may or may not be exactly the same.

Another example would be a end user group transferring address space to 
another end user group for no cost at all and with no expectation other than  
community good.  Further these transactions may or may not take place 
through a listing service.  It would be a shame if we only think about the 
market in terms of cash transactions, especially given the longer term 
history of the Internet community.  Please leave room for the better angles 
too.

The later example probablly doesn't need to be accounted for within the 
market, it is probablly outside the market anyway, but barter transactions 
should be accounted for in some way within the market.

On 17 Mar 2008 Randy Bush wrote:

> Tom Vest wrote:
> > For goals that they ["members"] don't support, artificial incentives
> > have to be large, and penalties severe, and even so the compliance
> > rate is likely to be low.
> 
> please reconcile this with the flags we salute and tout, bottom-up and
> self-regulation.
> 
> if there are goals the members do not support, then whose goals are
> they?  do you mean to imply that there likely exist societal goods which
> the membership does not support?  if so, what is the implication for the
> sustainability of our supposedly bottom-up model of self-regulation?
> 
> being raised on the west side of the cascades and coast range, i kinda
> like models which expect water to flow downhill, and being lazy, i try
> to avoid designing systems where it needs to flow uphill.
> 
> what's the easy stuff here?  i keep saying, set up an ebay-like system.
> run by a fourth party, not buyers and sellers or the registries.  make
> the product, bidding, and prices visible.  make it easy for buyers to be
> sure sellers actually have the right to sell.  associate with an escrow
> service.
> 
> sorry, i'm from ops.
> 
> randy


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