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

[Tom Vest]

On Mar 17, 2008, at 5:48 PM, Jo Rhett wrote:

> On Mar 17, 2008, at 12:44 PM, Tom Vest wrote:
>> driven by, alternately, increased recurring membership fees that
>> increment based on actual IPv4 holdings, which could be wholly offset
>
> A large portion of the reasoning behind this policy was to get  
> legacy IP holders to free up space.
>
> 1. They don't pay fees today, and wouldn't if we increased fees.
>
> 2. They would have less incentive to participate, as when they do  
> this deal they have to sign the RSA.  If the costs for their IP  
> space increase, then they have less incentive to sign the RSA and  
> thus, to participate.
>
> I think that a nice side effect of the proposed policy (might be)  
> that we'd get more legacy holders to sign the RSA ;-)


Hi Jo,

Thanks for the feedback! I agree that that increasing formal  
participation in the community, including increased acceptance/ 
reduced rejection rates for the RSA, would be a good thing. My proto- 
proposal attempts to do this also, albeit coming from the other  
direction. Consider: anyone who has rejected the RSA to date, but  
intends to sign on to monetize their address resources, is probably  
motivated only by that revenue opportunity. If that's all they want,  
and the community and/or the law has determined that their wishes  
prevail, then I think we should acknowledge and grant that wish.

Although the proto-proposal only obliges RSA signatories, and allows  
only RSA signatories to earn address return bounties, nothing  
precludes them from earning those bounties by buying up resources  
from RSA refuseniks, as opposed to internally renumbering. In other  
words, the idea sort of deputizes RSA signatories to do presumably  
exactly what they'll be doing anyway in the absence of some ironclad  
(i.e., probably expensive and heavy-handed) policy modifications --  
i.e., scouring the Earth for purchasable address resources, as  
broadly and as vigorously as their size and budget permits. Thus,  
under the proto-proposal, RSA signatories could help to improve the  
participation rates by, in effect, buying up all of the idle  
resources held by operational and non-operational non-participants,  
and help to move those resources either back into the free pool for  
possible redelegation, or at least into the scope of RSAs of the  
bounty collectors themselves.

In this sense, the imposition of "artificial"*, policy-determined  
bounties could help to set set the upper limit on prices that could  
be credibly demanded by non-signatories, thereby further reducing the  
potential for runaway inflation, speculation, hoarding, etc. So to me  
this seems like a feature and not a bug.

Very grateful for any/all responses :-)

TV

*Private responders have suggested that that this way of setting  
prices is somehow "artificial", but given the fact that, to date, the  
idea of pricing address resources has no precedent makes this  
criticism ring a little hollow. Today, *all* price-related ideas are  
equally artificial -- so maybe the goal should be selecting the right  
artificial pricing mechanism to achieve the community's goals...?