Am 05.06.26 um 13:49 schrieb Ulf Kieber via members-discuss:
-----Original Message----- From: Jochen Bern <ripe@binect.de>
End result, IPv4 has gotten that much more expensive for *everyone*, regardless of how much they're an upstanding Internet citizen opposed to the market approach.
Does being an "upstanding Internet citizen" require to be "opposed to the market approach"?
Well, in the specific guise of "IPv4 shouldn't be sold off, but returned to RIPE", it implies at least abstaining from the market approach *yourself*.
RIPE very rightfully doesn't go down that road to regulatory monopoly hell. They would expose themselves to all sorts of legal proceedings.
... because they're actually *not* prosecutor, judge, and executioner on these matters, but rather very much subject to litigation if a commercial entity (with deeper pockets) accuses them of unduly interfering with their business model (formulated way-back-when things were a dime a /12). Am 04.06.26 um 01:55 schrieb Niels Dettenbach:
Am Donnerstag, 4. Juni 2026, 19:05:00 UTC+00:00:01 schrieb Jochen Bern:
Their buyers will continue to buy from *them*, rather than waiting to obtain IPv4 space from RIPE, because the price and delay comparisons between the two have merely shifted, not changed fundamentally.
hmm, i did the opposite...
"The opposite"? Do you mean that you *used* to buy IPv4 space, but have *stopped* doing so *without* any financial penalty having been added so far? If so, I'm sure that RIPE would like to hear details about your motivation there.
And i got -2 years ago - the recommendation from colleagues to create sereval LIRs just to get a single /24 (merging into one existing LIR account to save money after the minimum merge window) to rent or sell it later. "Many of us did and do that...".
You already made it quite clear that the historic handling of IPv4 does not meet your definition of "fair use". Now you're adding mention of a mechanism that was in action for an even smaller stretch of history, and is *guaranteed* not to make a reappearance. Again, "feel guilty for what happened in the past" is not considered an integral part of market mechanisms; you need a governing authority dishing out penalties after the fact to tweak capitalism that way.
I just can imagine how many LIRs until today are secondary accounts of larger LIRs (which includes their ability to vote "multiple times" btw.)
IIRC it *was* clarified on this list, a couple weeks ago, that it's one vote per *member*, not LIR.
Which they may or may not find a *compelling* reason to. (Sure, if you were to *quintuple* the price in one fell swoop ...)
This seems economically incorrect and you dont take into account the fuller market picture including demand and market available resources.
If the amount of unused IPv4 space getting to market getting up, prices will go down because the demand will not grow with higher prices, but the costs to hold unusued and unrented ressources will. Speculating with the reource is getting less interesting then today.
The only parties "speculating" with IPv4 addresses would be squatters holding onto them long term with no intent of (immediately) using them themselves, but planning to sell them later on. I was under the impression that the market would not *exist* if demand didn't exceed supply, at least on the timeliness front. Your impression seems to be diametrically different:
The amount of available IP space to rent for overpriced today is way over the demand for such a product. Lot of holders sit on their IP space hoping to get it rented per some agency or selled even more expensive or at least more profitable after all in the future.
I suppose we would need more data, like the "proper use" audits RIPE did quite a while ago, to get that one nailed down ... But, for the sake of the argument, let's say that prices get raised to the point where everyone and his router would want to sell their stock. You called them "overpriced *today*". How much of the demand would evaporate because the prospective buyers cannot *afford* to get the addresses they'd need anymore - then, *and for eternity*¹, as you don't present a mechanism other than "*keep* the price up" (the same price you assume to *fall* as the eventual result) to prevent the *return* of the market? ¹ OK, for the remaining life expectancy of IPv4, to be precise. Kind regards, -- Jochen Bern Systemingenieur Binect GmbH