[arin-ppml] Change of Use and ARIN (was: Re: AFRINIC And The Stability Of The Internet Number Registry System)

[Mike Burns]

Hi Ron,

" But can any of us say with confidence that once there was a free market, a
lot of this commodity (IPv4) that was sitting on shelves didn't just stay
there -because- of the open and free market...
because the "owners" of those blocks effectively became speculators, just
waiting arond for the scarcity to become more acute, and for the price to go
up?"

Geoff Huston did an analysis a few years back which pretty conclusively
showed older and unused legacy blocks were a primary source for the transfer
market, I am sure you can find that report with your skills!

" Just curious Mike... Does this opinion on your part extend also to IPv6?"

Of course not. IPv6 is not a scarce resource and there is no market for it
to compete with the free pool.

What you call "speculation" is I think a misnomer. That word is pointedly
used because it has negative connotations in the mind of the economically
illiterate.  What really is happening with leasing is merely a different
channel of distribution, and it emulates the presence of leasing in auto
markets,  equipment markets, property markets, and many others because it
makes economic sense.  
What if you rent out  your spare bedroom, are you a speculator? 
What if you buy the house next door and rent it out, are you a speculator?

What is required is some middle level between RIR and user to address the
needs of those users, and in the absence of policy prohibitions, the leasing
market has developed naturally to meet these needs. If it should also happen
that meeting these needs is a profitable venture for the lessor, and the
lessor wants to buy another block to lease out, what is the problem with
that? Maybe you can help me understand where the problem lies without
reference to a free pool? 

Regards,
Mike






-----Original Message-----
From: ARIN-PPML <arin-ppml-bounces at arin.net> On Behalf Of Ronald F.
Guilmette
Sent: Thursday, September 02, 2021 4:39 PM
To: arin-ppml at arin.net
Subject: Re: [arin-ppml] Change of Use and ARIN (was: Re: AFRINIC And The
Stability Of The Internet Number Registry System)

In message <058401d7a013$7797d160$66c77420$@iptrading.com>,
"Mike Burns" <mike at iptrading.com> wrote:

>We tried the method you've espoused below for thirty years and the 
>result were a huge amount of wasted address space. Once the market was 
>adopted, many of those addresses found a useful place in the routing 
>table.

Well, it's sort of a Catch-22.  Mike, you're absolutely right that once
there was a free market, a lot of stuff came off the shelves and started to
be used productively.  But can any of us say with confidence that once there
was a free market, a lot of this commodity (IPv4) that was sitting on
shelves didn't just stay there -because- of the open and free market...
because the "owners" of those blocks effectively became speculators, just
waiting arond for the scarcity to become more acute, and for the price to go
up?

(I confess that I never in my life took an economics class, but it seems to
me that the entire field is chock full of head-scratching conundrums like
this... situation where you are damned if you do and damned if you
don't.)

>The free pool era is dying, let's put a fork in it as quickly as 
>possible We've seen the corruption engendered by the bait of the free 
>pool in multiple registries now, including our own.

Just curious Mike... Does this opinion on your part extend also to IPv6?

>Your old-fashioned method of address distribution would get some 
>addresses to those in need, I will concede that. However, so will 
>leasing addresses, with that demonstration of need being the lease 
>payment. Will  you concede that those who pay to lease addresses need 
>them?

Even if nobody else does, I certainly will.  But of course that's not the
only issue.

The current Cloud Innovation v. AFRINIC thing is in some ways confusing as
hell because it has brought to a head -multiple- long-standing issues that
have then gotten all tangled up with one another, making it difficult for
anybody to tease apart the various separate issues.

One of these is what might be called "equity", i.e. the social desire to
help Africa, a continent and a people who have been on the receiving end of
so much exploitation and malevolent evil, over the centuries, at the hands
of others.

Another issue is the right and proper role of RIRs.

Last but not leas (and perhaps the most troubling and most difficult to
crack open in a way that does not merely reveal our individual biases) is
the question of the proper role of what I will just call "speculators"
within any free market.

Contrary to what some might say, I think that when it comes to IPv4
addresses at least, it most certainly -is- possible to distinguish
"speculators" from actual and legitimate end users and/or legitimate brokers
& middlemen such as yourself.  As I understand it, the current system
requires people to document their equipment purchases.  No equipment
purchases?  You're almost certainly just a speculator.

So then the question becomes two-fold:  (1) Do we want speculators in this
marketplace? and (2) Is there any actually feasible way to keep them out of
the "free" market even if the collective "we" firmly decided that we wanted
to do so?

I personally don't have answers to any of these questions.  I would only
offer up the observation that I am aware of at least a few speculators at
this moment in time, and it would be an understatement for me to say that
their actions seem to me to be both glaringly untoward and also unhelpful.
But if you ask me IN GENERAL whether "speculators" are a necessary and even
useful component of a free market, I cannot say they are not.  And it seems
I may not be alone in leaving open this possibility:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/07/09/the-theranos-implosion-a
nd-robert-shiller-on-short-selling-and-complete-markets/

Regards,
rfg
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