[arin-ppml] New Entrants shut out? (Was: ARIN-2011-5: ... - Last Call

[Owen DeLong]

> 
> Owen,
> 
> You have to be willing to agree that free markets are more efficient
> than planned economies to find my argument compelling. In a free
> market, IPv4 will always be available to those in need. In a planned
> economy (need-based justification) it will run out, die completely,
> and force migration to IPv6. There are many finite resources in the
> world that continue to trade in the free market (eg. oil, gold, etc)
> and therefore are readily available for purchase despite their finite
> nature. Speculators are a temporary nuisance, they can gamble as they
> wish but the market will still set the price in the long term.
> 
I think that there are strengths and weaknesses to both approaches.

In the case of both oil and gold, while they are finite, it is not the market
that has kept them rotating among consumers, but, rather the increasing
prices in a market that has lead to additional efforts to extract them from
the earth (sometimes with dire environmental consequences).

Oil and gold are nowhere near the limits that IPv4 is facing. There is
still more oil in known locations underground than we can possibly
consume in decades, even at current rates of acceleration of consumption.

However, once all of the oil had been extracted, refined, and consumed,
a market will not make more oil available. It will not repair the damage
to the environment from ever increasingly aggressive efforts to extract
it, etc.

Indeed, I do find your markets are the best argument especially un-
compelling as it relates to gold and oil. Not because I believe that
markets are inherently bad, but, because your claims about the
properties of markets are fallacious at best.

Markets do tend to work reasonably well with appropriate regulation
when they are used as a mechanism for the distribution of commodities
where the supply is flexible and demand can drive additional supply.

So far, that is true of gold and oil.

> This leads me to one of two conclusions:
> 
> - You support planned economies and do not believe in free markets
> -or-
> - You intend to see IPv4 die and see the damage it's causing as a
> necessary evil.
> 
Actually, this is also a fallacious characterization of the reality.

While I'm not entirely opposed to a market, I believe that justified need
is a perfectly valid regulation of the market as I do not believe that
speculators bring any value to the economy.

> My "plan" allows for companies to make their own decision to migrate
> to IPv6, without anyone at ARIN having to force it upon them.
> 
I'm all for doing that. However, your plan also enables speculators to
come in, purchase all IPv4 addresses available at anything approaching
reasonable pricing and by cornering the market manipulate the pricing
of IPv4 addresses for no purpose other than their own greed.

Please explain how that benefits the community.

Owen