[arin-ppml] Against 2013-4

[Matthew Kaufman]

On 6/5/2013 5:47 PM, George Herbert wrote:
>
>
> 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.

Who the f*** cares if there's speculation? These are *IPv4* addresses. 
You know, the ones we're trying to stop using so that everyone 
transitions to IPv6 already.

ARIN should be doing whatever it takes to keep track of the insanity 
that is going to result, and imposing a bunch of needs assessment tasks 
in addition to that is just taking up valuable resources from 
encouraging IPv6 adoption.


>
> 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.

Who cares? The long-term impact is "IPv4 is dead, everyone uses IPv6". 
The interim is going to suck for *someone* no matter which controls are 
imposed. And I don't know why anyone on this list should be doing 
anything other than acting in their own self-interest to ensure that it 
sucks least for them.

>
> 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.

Is the initial perceived value higher or lower than $11.25 (speaking of 
addresses that clearly transferred without meeting the needs assessment 
process that was in place at the time)?

>
> 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.

Why?

They'll have a lot more fun analyzing the real data from the aftermath 
rather than trying to predict something that shouldn't matter.

Matthew Kaufman