Comments on ARIN proposal

[Mark Richmond]

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From:   Michael Dillon[SMTP:michael at memra.com]

On Tue, 21 Jan 1997, Mark Richmond wrote:

> Are you aware of any Large ISP's or other philantropic organizations
> that might pay that fee so that a small or medium-sized ISP could make a
> bigger profit?  Me either.

. . . . .
Let's remember that there are a lot of forces at play here and it is a
gross oversimplification to paint the large providers as demonic forces
out to monopolize the net and squash the small ISP. This is simply not
the case.
. . . . .

Geez, Michael.  Nobody said MCI was swahili for Satan.  
The fact is, MCI is a *business*, and a very successful one.  They got that way because the work to make a *profit*.  Both of these concepts are foreign to the 'net intellegentsia, so I'll explain.  Businesses make a profit by selling goods or services for MORE than the COST of them.

If MCI or any other right-thinking business buys blocks of addresses for $X, they will sell them for $X+profit.

You continue to imply that large providers will simply reduce their profits in order to absorb the cost.  Why in the world would you think that?

This being said, I will refrain from further comments on the economic realities and misconceptions thereof.

Obviously there sill always be those in the "Internet Community" for whom economics was *not* a required class.