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

[Owen DeLong]

On Feb 17, 2012, at 11:43 AM, Jeffrey Lyon wrote:

> On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 2:19 PM, Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com> wrote:
>> 
>> 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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> 
> Having a test market would not have any impact on the supply and
> demand of the free pool. The free pool would continue to exist as-is.
> The only spread would be in the test market, so those not
> participating are not impacted.


As I said, a test market would not have the same incentives to mischief/evil as a full-blown market would because the evil benefits would be capped by the regulated market and free pool allocations.

It is exactly this limited impact that makes the test invalid. OTOH, it is the damage that would be done if this is taken full scale that is my reasoning for opposing the policy on a full-scale basis regardless of the outcome of such a test if it were conducted.

I'm not opposed to the test, I merely question that it has any value whatsoever.

Owen