[members-discuss] RIPE NCC Members and Multiple

Hello Thomas,

TL;DR : it's going to get as ugly as the taxi/uber fight is unless we
implement a composite strategy to change our habbits and thinking.

Le 17/02/2016 14:55, Thomas Mangin a écrit :
> And this is going to help by … ???

Think of an inetnum as a taxi licence. It's free or cheap from the local
authorities, but delivered in small numbers because current licence
holders asks the authorities to restrict the market (think "last /8
policy").

Doing so, and allowing holders to sell their licences, authorities
opened a market that taxi driver uses as a speculative market and even a
"pension fund". Some speculators and rent-seekers went to buy as many
licences as possible to rent them to new drivers, establishing a kind of
feudal system.

Now, a new way of doing something similar to taxi services appeared,
that do not require a rare licence to operate (think IPv6). See what
happens : licence holders, mostly backed and teased by their Lord (G7 in
Paris), fought so hard that the alternative business can't operate on
competitive grounds.

Several solutions have been proposed, and of course, the french
government choose the worst. Let's review some :

- Release new licences -> licence value plummets, pensions are lost,
drivers are angry, crooks release politician's compromising travel logs
(who gave up Saal ? Warning shot…). In our world, that would be similar
to a recovery campain to reclaim and redistribute wasted ressources.

- Regulate licence price and slowly destroy this market by buying
licences out and emiting non-transferable free licences -> a little
softer than the first, but doesn't solve long term issues.

- Deregulate them all : well, think of what a mess the driver who lost
200k€ worth of licence overnight will do to Uber drivers ? No, they
won't realize it's their major taxi company who screwed them in the
first place. How would it look to us ? Think of the "Let's party 'til
it's over" strategy in other regions. Still no IPv6, AFAIK.


So where are we going now ?

By letting the inetnum market establish itself in Europe, RIPE NCC (so,
us, as members), did the exact same idiotic thing than taxi drivers did
when asking to be allowed to sell their licences.

Enforcing scarce distribution of the last /8 with little to no oversight
had a direct effect to encourage the free market (listing / transfer
service) and creation of new LIRs. We're in phase 2 : still no Uber,
still no solution.

If RIPE had not opened the listing and transfer service, things would
have gone wilder anyway : when crooks and rent-seekers possess a rare
ressource, they always find their way to profit.

No matter how we try to resist to this kind of abuse (giving value to
something that shouldn't have any), it will still exist. Unless there's
a real and strong authoritative action taken to forbid it.

But how would we like RIPE NCC to have the power to kill any of us over
ressourceus interruptus ? And what if we don't ?


***
I can already forsee two major problems if no action is taken now :

- Rent-seekers *WILL* take over RIPE NCC and hold us hostage at some point

- They will fight against IPv6 in order to protect their asset's value
and profits

(as if IPv6 needed any help to not be deployed)
***


I have no clean solution to the matter at hands. I'd like to find a
composite of 3 axis :

- Change the fee model to drain more value (and therefore power) to RIPE
NCC from ressource abusers and rent-seekers while keeping the bar low
enough for NFP and newcomers

- Break the ownership feeling : no one should consider its IP space to
be a property. Periodic renumbering to agregate smaller prefixes ?
Allocation expiration date ?

- Do anything to protect the ability for a new ISP to get basic
ressources in order to try and compete against the existing market


Of course, we should also progressively bring the transfer market to an
end, and get back to an allocation model based on usage proof. And
periodic audit.

What do you think ?

-- 
Jérôme Nicolle
+33 6 19 31 27 14