[arin-ppml] ARIN-prop-151 Limiting Needs Requirements for IPv4 Transfers

[Kevin Kargel]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: arin-ppml-bounces at arin.net [mailto:arin-ppml-bounces at arin.net] On
> Behalf Of Mike Burns
> Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2011 3:12 PM
> To: arin-ppml at arin.net
> Subject: Re: [arin-ppml] ARIN-prop-151 Limiting Needs Requirements for
> IPv4 Transfers
> 
Snippage to a single point...
> 
> OK, my assertion is that holding other conditions constant, raising
> the price of a commodity leads to more efficient use of it.
> Like, I figure that there is less left uneaten on the plate at Ruth's
> Chris than there is at Sizzlers, in general, because people don't
> like to waste expensive things.
> (There must have been some psychological test run at some point to
> test my hypothesis, I will see if I can find one.)
> (And I suppose the taste of a Ruth's Chris steak is not constant with
> the taste of a Sizzlers steak.)
> 
> 
I will argue that there is probably more waste at Ruth's Chris than there is at Sizzler, because the patrons at Ruth's have more money than they know what to do with and they are not concerned about waste.  
It is the poor folks at Sizzler who have saved up for a month to go out and have a half inch steak that are more likely to lick the plates clean and eat the potato skins.  
The rich folks will leave stuff on the plate to save room for that $16 chocolate sin cake and a $40 cognac.

The same is what I think will happen with a non-needs based market.  The big boys with huge budgets because of scale will have no problem with snapping up a few million dollars worth of netblocks and warehousing them because the netblocks are now a non-depreciating capital asset and buying them will not affect the bottom line on the balance sheet.  The big boys will do this in part to make sure that nobody else can use them.  In a non-needs based market IP's are a speculative investment, whether or not you actually use them.

Another risk is that as in the game of Monopoly, the act of depriving your competitor from access to an asset can be more important even than owning the asset.  It could well be worth a few million to deprive a competitor from resources they need to succeed.

Kevin