[arin-ppml] FW: [SPAM] - ARIN-PPML Digest, Vol 52, Issue 22 - Email has different SMTP TO: and MIME TO: fields in the email addresses

[Chris Engel]

Ted,

I'll try to avoid the political overtones in your reply to Milton other then to point out the obvious.....those who always decry market-based solutions in favor of regulatory-agency based solutions overlook the obvious.... it is simply trading the potential for one type of favoritism (economic) for another (political connectedness). ANY time you empower a body to determine who may or may not have access to a resource you create the potential for abuse both overt and subvert. Furthermore that's only examining one axis of the issue, presumed fairness.... it doesn't even address considerations about the efficiency under which such a resource could be administered.... or questions of why people may choose that resource over other alternatives.

One could easily argue that the problems in the US housing market originated with quasi-governmental agencies (Fannie May & Freddie Mac) whose mandate was specifically to ignore economic realities. Likewise TARP would not have been possible without the precedent that interference in the market lies within the normal bounds of governments legitimate prevue... certainly NOT a viewpoint forwarded by traditional conservatives. However, that's a digression.

In market-based systems there is only a significant economic barrier to entry when the resource is significantly scarce. If it is not significantly scarce then the economic barrier is so low that it becomes inconsequential for normal usage. That system works as long there are rules in place to prevent some-one from creating a "false scarcity" by monopolizing the market.

If we look at the Domain Name System we can see an example of such a system that works. At less then $10 a year at a cheap registrar, it is hardly a "playground for the wealthy" or any such thing. It's well within the budget of the average Joe out there. When you obtain a name, ICANN isn't concerned whether you truly NEED the name.... simply that you will USE it for a purpose other then simply manipulating the name market (i.e. creating a false scarcity)....and that there isn't some pre-existing legal claim on the name outside of the Domain Registry. Now if you want a specific name already in use....it's really upto you (and the existing holder) to determine whether having it is worth the cost of obtaining it...and only you are truly in a position to determine that.

It would probably be impossible, just in terms of resources, for ICANN to determine the legitimate NEED for a name in any more then a VERY small minority of the claims and even then the system would be prone to flaws and abuse if ICANN was tasked with anything more then simply determining that the current holder was USING the name .... and there wasn't a prior standing legal claim to the name.





" Once you replace need-based distribution into a market with fee-based distribution, what follows is lots of economic power that over time will erode all of the safeties installed in the initial market - such as your specification that blocks so allocated cannot be deaggregated.

The moment that it would be economically advantageous to a wealthy org to break this rule, the rule would be broken and discarded.

This is exactly what happened in the US housing market - originally the financial controls were installed to prevent the housing runup - these controls were chafed against by the wealthy, for many years, until eventually the wealthy managed to take over and remove them - and within 10 years, the market exploded and collapsed.

That is the ultimate end to all market-based solutions like you conservatives advocate because you continually ignore the intrusion of political power into the market and it's corrupting influence.  The battle cry of the conservatives is that "those" wealthy corrupting conservatives that destroy controls aren't "real" conservatives, the problem is in the people making poor choices, not in a flawed system.

You fail to see that a flawed system rewards poor choices and penalizes good choices, thus it's ultimately going to influence even the best people to make flawed choices.  (such as the TARP bailout)

Ted"