<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Feb 24, 2014 at 11:19 PM, Andrew Sullivan <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:ajs@anvilwalrusden.com" target="_blank">ajs@anvilwalrusden.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="">On Mon, Feb 24, 2014 at 05:10:23PM -0800, Owen DeLong wrote:<br>
> Look at the effect house flipping had on the California real estate market.<br>
</div>That is a terrible analogy. IPv4 space is very close to a pure<br>
commodity, and moreover it is one for which there is an imperfect<br>
substitute. Also, despite the attempts of various (in my opinion,<br>
</blockquote><div><br></div><div>Have you tried renumbering an IP network, after IP addresses have been assigned?</div><div><br></div><div>Real-estate, or a piece of 'virtual land' inside the TCP/IP world is a more apt comparison, than a commodity.</div>
<div><br></div><div>A /32 would be the virtual plot of IPv4 land required for a digital single-family home.<br></div><div><div>A /24 would be a subdivision, or an apartment building.</div><div>A /16 would be a small city.</div>
</div><div><br></div><div>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;</div><div>"renumbering" or selling off can no longer be done without great pains.<br>
</div><div><br></div><div> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">misguided) people to nail IPv4 space to physical location, as a<br>
practical matter you can move your IPv4 in a way you can't move your<br>
house, much less your land.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>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.</div>
<div> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
If we are going to draw analogies with speculative markets, surely<br>
commodity markets like grains, livestock, and textiles are better<br>
analogies. And indeed, such analogies are instructive, because<br>
</blockquote><div><br></div><div>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.</div>
<div><br></div><div>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",</div>
<div>nor is there likely to be liquidity, due to the problems with renumbering networks.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>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.</div>
<div><br></div><div> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">commodity markets in which there is massive speculation tends to drive<br>
people to the alternatives, even if they're imperfect. Raise the<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>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.</div>
<div><br></div><div>So massive speculation is apparently equivalent to "damage" or "harm".</div><div><br></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
than many people have imagined. Even if he is off by some margin,<br>
the benefits of strong regulation attempts on this sort of v4 market<br>
activity are far from obvious. They might actually be harmful, to the<br>
extent they inspire people to devote energy to gaming the v4<br>
regulations in stead of just working to move to v6.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>On the flip side... ARIN doesn't need to facilitate anyone's attempt to create a market in the first place.</div><div><br></div>
<div>Now is not the time to abandon principles of stewardship.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
Best regards,<br>
<br>
Andrew<br>
<span class=""><font color="#888888"><br>
--<br>
Andrew Sullivan<br>
<a href="mailto:ajs@anvilwalrusden.com">ajs@anvilwalrusden.com</a><br>
</font></span><div class=""><div class="h5"><br></div></div></blockquote><div>--</div><div>-JH </div></div></div></div>