[arin-ppml] About needs basis in 8.3 transfers

[Milton L Mueller]

This debate has descended into rather nasty and unconstructive name calling. So if I am not mistaken with the attribution here, we have Woodcock calling Huberman 'idiotic,' a devotee of Ayn Rand (how did she get in here?), the moral equivalent of a slave trader, and a self-indulgent non-adult.  

May I ask that this stop?

Bill, the entire community has already recognized the legitimacy of markets for IPv4 numbers. Transfer markets are institutionalized and have been for 4 years. So any argument that is based on comparing it to the slave/drug trade is gone.  

All we are debating is the presence or absence of needs assessment as a gatekeeping function for that market. 
This is a fairly administrative and technical argument, not a moral one. Efficiency is the key criterion (not fairness, really). If you support needs assessments you have to make a case that the costs and burdens associated with it are justified by quantifiable benefits. In this case, inefficiency is unfairness: if the needs assessment process prevents resources from going where they are wanted most, or if the cost burdens associated with the process exceed the value of the numbers acquired for small operators, or if it is shown that large, established companies with well-established relationships to ARIN can navigate the process more easily, then there are signs that needs assessment is unfair because of its inefficiencies.

You have to do a better job of explaining why it is "fair" to force a willing seller and a willing buyer to submit to an additional step when that step both limits the quantity of resources available for transfer and raises the cost of participating in the market by a substantial degree. 

--MM

-----Original Message-----
From: arin-ppml-bounces at arin.net [mailto:arin-ppml-bounces at arin.net] On Behalf Of Bill Woodcock

Your argument that ARIN needs to step out of the way of the human slaves market, recognize its validity, and duly record the transfers of those slaves, because Ayn Rand, is idiotic.  And if you think that's not what you just said, you need to step back and reflect a little before touching your keyboard.

We self-regulate, rather than wallowing in the trough of self-indulgence, because we are (speaking collectively and aspirationally, at least) adults.  As such, we don't want our power to self-regulate removed.