Comments on ARIN proposal

[Kent Crispin]

Michael Dillon allegedly said:
[...]
> 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.

Of course.  However, it is an equally gross oversimplification to say
that the obvious, factual bias towards large providers will not filter
through to the small ISPs.  And it is also a gross oversimplification
to say that the large providers will be benign or neutral toward
small competitors.  In fact, it would be more than a gross
oversimplification, it would represent total economic cluelessness.
The fact that small ISPs have had explosive growth may mask things,
but one would have to be willfully blind or chained by dogma to
imagine that the goodwill of the large providers is any protection
whatsoever for small ISPs.

So, one way to look at this is that the technical necessity of the
moment and the sleepiness of the large providers are giving cover to
the implementation of a *fundamentally* anticompetitive system that has
the potential to squeeze the small providers out of existence.  The
only protection they have is the goodwill/indifference of the large
providers.

And your point is that they haven't done anything so far, so
therefore we shouldn't worry about it.  Or did I misrepresent it?

--
Kent Crispin                            "No reason to get excited",
kent at songbird.com,kc at llnl.gov           the thief he kindly spoke...
PGP fingerprint:   5A 16 DA 04 31 33 40 1E  87 DA 29 02 97 A3 46 2F