Hi Nick,

Thanks for your constructive feedback. First, I would like to note that the BCG matrix can be used for a lot of things - including external M&A analysis as you mentioned - but originally it was created as a tool to analyze product portfolios strategically... internally. 😊

Whether an organization is "for profit" or "non-profit" is a nuance. The revenue, expenses, and capital budgeting processes for both types are the same. Where they differ is what to do with the excess.. or do they? For profits tend to plow excess into new projects/investments and return excess to their owners (= dividend) only if they are unable to find projects with better return. Non-profits behave rather similarly; some have returned excess (after all expenses and investments) to its membership - not owners, mind - in the past in the form of reduced annual fees.....

I imagine most people are fine with whatever RIPE NCC thinks it needs and wants to spend their revenue on. After all, it is to the benefit of the community and internet. This is because the numbers individually are so small, and I believe most members are not even aware of the members-discuss list or read the annual budget PDFs, etc. etc. This of course is fine; everyone is entitled to their opinion and choice.

Still, when the CFO equivalent for an organization comes asking for alternatives on how to raise prices to meet projected future budget from its customers (membership) I think it is super useful to look critically at what that organization spends its revenue on. I mean, the RIPE NCC budget has mostly grown year over year and so have pretty much all its departments. The revenue streams have been all but assured in the past years due to growth in networking.

But are all these new (or old) functions necessary? My view is that they are not which is why I am posting here. As such one should take a critical look at what the organization does, what its original remit was and whether there are things that might not be quite inside of that scope. The organization itself thinks it is entitled to increase its charges because they do not want to reduce anything they already do.

Kaj

-----Original Message-----
From: Nick Hilliard <nick@netability.ie>
Sent: Thursday, March 9, 2023 13:44
To: Kaj Niemi <kajtzu@basen.net>
Cc: members-discuss@ripe.net
Subject: Re: [members-discuss] [ncc-announce] [GM] Consultation on RIPE NCC Charging Scheme 2024

Kaj Niemi wrote on 08/03/2023 17:27:

> If we use the BCG matrix to analyze RIPE NCC briefly, it is certainly

> in the lower left quadrant of the four-cell matrix - a cash cow.

Kaj,

it's probably useful to keep this style of analysis in the rear view

mirror, but the BCG growth matrix is a somewhat un-nuanced mechanism

relevant to investment opportunity assessment rather than revenue

modelling of not-for-profit organisations.

Inevitably, revenue remodelling exercises will create questions about

what the organisation actually does. Zooming out on this, the RIPE NCC

operates on a mandate to carry out the operational requirements of the

RIPE Community. This includes registry functions, but the RIR function

is only part of that mandate.

Personally, I'd take the view that these two discussions need to be

decoupled: the RIPE NCC activity plan is one policy decision, and the

nuances of funding this activity plan is a slightly different one. If

the two decisions are tied together, we end up with too many moving

parts, i.e. instability. I don't believe that this would be in anyone's

interests.

The discussion at hand is whether the organisation should revert its

costing model from everyone-pays-equally to

larger-resource-holders-pay-more.  We've had this discussion before, in

2012, where a Task Force was asked to examine the NCC funding model.

They designed 3 potential schemes and the RIPE NCC membership voted

197:109 to adopt a common fee for all LIRs. The question we have now is

whether to continue with this model, or to revert to the older model.

I.e. this is not a new debate, nor is it of earth shattering importance.

What's important is that the RIPE NCC has financial stability.

In terms of the cost increases proposed for larger LIRs, the reality of

ipv4 address assignment is that at €50 / address, a RIR cost increase of

€1800 -> €8000 is negligible.  I don't think it's likely they'll start

asking serious existential questions about the RIPE NCC on the basis of

a couple of €K.

Nick