[arin-ppml] Against 2013-4

[George Herbert]

On Jun 5, 2013, at 8:26 AM, Milton L Mueller <mueller at syr.edu> wrote:

> The feeling is that bureaucratic needs assessments introduce significant friction into the transfer process, making it more difficult for addresses to shift from people with a surplus to people who actually need them. It is the current system that is characterized by hoarding, not a freer market.


The assets not being fungible is a defense mechanism against speculation.

I have not seen adequate economics modeling by either side of this debate suggesting what the impact would be on various scenarios, such as allowing open (no needs based) compensated transfer, allowing specifically openly compensated transfers with needs basis; price controls vs unregulated open market private transactions vs some variation on a regulated exchange with posted transactions, etc.

The asset pool is both fixed ( fixed address space that is practically finite ) and variable ( if commoditized, under some scenarios, some organizations will voluntarily conserve public space usage in order to sell excess inventory).  It has high initial perceived value but that is likely to fall as IPv6 adoption becomes nearly universal.

We've walked out on a ledge here without looking closely at the paths.  Where is Hal Varian when we need him?  We should be handing this to economics grad students as project suggestions or thesis projects, etc.


George William Herbert
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