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Markets For IPv4 Addresses Emerging
netbuzz writes "An active marketplace for buying and selling IPv4 addresses is materializing, and policymakers are clarifying the rules associated with how network operators can monetize this increasingly scarce resource. At least four websites are serving as brokers for organizations that want to sell or lease IPv4 address space. The activity comes in the wake of Nortel's recent sale of 666,624 IPv4 addresses to Microsoft for $7.5 million, or $11.25 per address."
Knowing the greedy telecom companies, they'll try and sucker us all into ISP-level NAT first. After all, NAT works fine if home users are good consumers, passively web-surfing and connecting to "content providers" for any server needs.
Because I'm more comfortable with buyers and sellers coming to mutually-agreeable terms for the transfer rather than some centralized bureaucracy decided what constitutes "well-utilized" and seizing them against the consent of the owners. Besides the general dislike for top-down authority, the decentralized decision-making process will likely yield (overall) better results for determining what is "well-utilized" and what isn't based on the preferences of the stakeholders.
Then you should run, not walk, away from your computer and never access the Internet ever again.
I don't know if you're aware of it, but oligarchic cliques of so-called 'scientists' and 'researchers' from ivory tower elitist academic institutions have been controlling your Internet since its inception. Not too long ago, one man (one man) was responsible for ccTLD management. The hubris!
It's because of this cabal of anti-market conspirators that the Internet is such a ramshackle digital hodge-podge driven by socialist ideologies that allow people access to anything - anything! - for free.
Happily, the Captains of Commerce are working even as we speak to save us from this intolerable freedom to share.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
Incorrect. Blocks allocated prior to ARIN are still maintained in the ARIN database accordingly to community policies. This includes processing contract, updates, being reclaimed, etc.
/John
John Curran President and CEO
ARIN
Economics theory refers to what you're talking about as a Giffen Good. As prices rise, so does the appeal and therefore so does the demand. The usual laws regarding supply-and-demand, etc, don't work. Prices will rise to what the market will bear, but as prices rise the desirability ensures that the markets will always bear just that little bit more. Which is why you get market bubbles in the first place. The greater the overpricing, the greater the prestige in owning the commodity.
Ultimately, all bubbles burst and when the IPv4 market bubble burts it is going to cause a LOT of pain because none of those caught in the bubble will have bothered preparing for IPv6. They'll assume that there'll always be some way to extend the range, some way to inflate the bubble still further. We've all seen similar posts on Slashdot even, where people should be smarter than that,
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)