Basically: there is a race. If you are an old competitor, you can
compete as usual. If you are a new one (less that 3 years), you start
with 10L of fuel and you get a 30 sec penalty every time you refill.
The question is, should RIPE be trying to "level the playing field" i.e. interfering in the market? Would it even work if they tried?
The argument has been well made that RIPE's role in dishing out IP addresses should be just that - making sure that there will be addresses to give when new members need them, not playing politics, re-jigging the pool of free addresses to "fix" a business problem that a subset of the members believe they are suffering.
I'm reminded of government intervention to "fix" the problems of broadband availability where rural areas feel they are disadvantaged. The result? hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers money wasted on crap satellite internet connections. Nobody wins.