[arin-ppml] ARIN-prop-165 Eliminate Needs-Based Justification

[Owen DeLong]

On Feb 17, 2012, at 10:59 AM, Jeffrey Lyon wrote:

> On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 1:25 PM, Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com> wrote:
>> Jeff,
>> 
>> If this policy is adopted, it would enable speculative brokers who wanted to
>> to maintain inventory without showing need for the addresses. It would
>> potentially turn IP addresses into a commodities futures market which I do
>> not believe would serve the community well.
>> 
>> You say that no purpose is served when a transfer is rejected between a
>> company with an unused allocation and a company in need.  Current policy
>> does not do that. It does limit the size of the transfer to the justified
>> need, but, it does not reject the transfer.
>> 
>> However, no purpose is served when addresses are allowed to be purchased by
>> organizations without need and great harm could come from allowing such
>> transactions if they start occurring on large scale in order to engage in
>> speculation or worse, anti-competitive practices.
>> 
>> Owen
> 
> Owen,
> 
> As resident devils advocate, I would be remiss not to point out that
> anyone who stocks IP space they can't sell would soon find themselves
> out of business thus discouraging others from substantially engaging
> in the same practice, thus the "invisible hand" fixes the market.

True, but, it would not be unusual to stock addresses at $10 until the market had high demand and low supply, then try to sell them for $50.

The community does not benefit from that $40 spread. The community is harmed by that $40 spread. Only the speculator benefits from that spread.

The invisible hand is slow to react and easily manipulated by those with resources to do so.

Owen

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