[arin-ppml] 2014-2 8.4 Anti-flip Language

[Jimmy Hess]

On Mon, Feb 24, 2014 at 11:19 PM, Andrew Sullivan <ajs at anvilwalrusden.com>wrote:

> On Mon, Feb 24, 2014 at 05:10:23PM -0800, Owen DeLong wrote:
> > Look at the effect house flipping had on the California real estate
> market.
> That is a terrible analogy.  IPv4 space is very close to a pure
> commodity, and moreover it is one for which there is an imperfect
> substitute.  Also, despite the attempts of various (in my opinion,
>

Have you tried renumbering an IP network, after IP addresses have been
assigned?

Real-estate,  or a piece of  'virtual land'  inside the TCP/IP world is a
more apt comparison, than a commodity.

A  /32  would be the virtual plot of IPv4 land required for a digital
single-family home.
A  /24  would be a subdivision, or an apartment building.
A  /16  would be a small city.

Of course land that has never been used can easily be traded between
real-estate developers,  with no repurcussions -----  but as soon as   you
have production tenants;
"renumbering"  or    selling off    can no longer be done without great
pains.



> misguided) people to nail IPv4 space to physical location, as a
> practical matter you can move your IPv4 in a way you can't move your
> house, much less your land.
>

You can't move IPv4 addresses either.      You can only change what they
are assigned to in the physical world;   inside the IPv4 world, every IP
address is always located at exactly the same position within the IPv4
address space.


> If we are going to draw analogies with speculative markets, surely
> commodity markets like grains, livestock, and textiles are better
> analogies.  And indeed, such analogies are instructive, because
>

Grains and livestock are consumables with finite lifetimes,  and textiles
wear out quickly;  there is high predictable future demand for these items
which are needed in massive quantities,   since members of the population
never stop needing to eat or wear clothing every day,  they are therefore
very large highly liquid markets.

As for IPv4 addresses.....  they never wear out.   Each address satisfies a
single device,  when the device is replaced --- the IP continues to be
useful.      There is not demand for  "massive IP address production",
nor  is there likely to be liquidity,  due to the problems with renumbering
networks.


2 Billion IP addresses is a TINY drop in a tiny bucket,  compared to the
number of units of  grains,  livestock, and textiles  required by consumers
every  month.



> commodity markets in which there is massive speculation tends to drive
> people to the alternatives, even if they're imperfect.  Raise the
>

The alternatives aren't just imperfect;  they are deficient, in the sense,
 that many of the  alternatives  don't work today,  cause major problems,
or can't work.

So massive speculation is apparently equivalent to "damage" or "harm".



> than many people have imagined.  Even if he is off by some margin,
> the benefits of strong regulation attempts on this sort of v4 market
> activity are far from obvious.  They might actually be harmful, to the
> extent they inspire people to devote energy to gaming the v4
> regulations in stead of just working to move to v6.
>

On the flip side...  ARIN doesn't need to facilitate anyone's attempt to
create a market in the first place.

Now is not the time to abandon principles of stewardship.




> Best regards,
>
> Andrew
>
> --
> Andrew Sullivan
> ajs at anvilwalrusden.com
>
> --
-JH
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