[members-discuss] Charging scheme 2025 proposal (logarithmic)

On 17.04.24 11:50, Evgeniy Brodskiy via members-discuss wrote:
> I think there is one more circle. Some members simply want to increase
> the cost of ownership IPv4 address space.
> 
> From: members-discuss <...> On Behalf Of Kurtis Lindqvist
> Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2024 11:56 AM
> 
> Isn’t this really at the heart of the problem. In a Venn diagram there
> are (at least) three circles here, the members with an opinion the
> mailinglist who want to crystalise the core services and keep RIPE NCC
> costs lower and see greater efficiency gains, there is the circle of
> members who respond to the membership survey and are happy and want to
> keep all services as they are and then there is a circle of the members
> who actually vote (and possibly manage the payments). I am not convinced
> there is a great overlap of these circles and so we end up in a situation
> with very little guidance.

Actually, the *most* important circle is *still* missing in the picture 
you paint: The "big corp" members of RIPE that so many suspect of 
intentionally mooching off the small LIRs. Because whatever your/our 
first move is, they'll *still* be present, be RIPE members (possibly 
*several*), have deeper pockets, and (supposedly) want to spend it to 
counteract you. Which has an overwhelming effect on the timelines:

-- It takes half an hour to take your personal definition of "fair" (or
    whatever term you prefer), do an off-the-cuff computation based on
    it, and post your favorite alternative charging scheme asking to have
    it put to vote as well.
-- It takes maybe a couple hours for someone to play advocatus diaboli
    and point out how "big corp" could react so as to game that scheme
    and turn it *against* you. (Yes, there have been several such replies
    in the current spate of list mails, too, essentially falling on deaf
    ears.)
-- It takes until a GM - *ideally* the next, but don't hold your breath
    - to have a vote on what definition *RIPE* and its executives shall
    have and use for "fair" so that we can hold all future proposed
    charging schemes against it *beforehand*.
-- It probably will take *several years* of refinement to get all the
    loopholes ironed out before we have a, so to say, "scheme of charging
    schemes" that actually prevents "big evil corp" rolling it back from
    *within* RIPE.
-- We will *NEVER* get to the point where "big corp" cannot use their
    means to launch, e.g., a political campaign a la "let's replace RIPE
    with Something Better™, thanks to the power of Good Legislation™!"
    (Which, in my book, means that we *should not* cut RIPE down to the
    budget covering the bare necessities and not more. Ask for the extra
    to be refunded at the end of the fiscal year if unused, but reacting
    to such a campaign with "ah, let's have a budget to fight that *next*
    year" is literally a nonstarter.)
-- (In the meantime, the charging schemes that'll get the votes will
    likely still be the ones proposed by RIPE executives, because the
    simple mechanism of "he made that bed, knowing that he'll have to
    lie in it" makes it more trustworthy to the average voter than
    some other random guy's suggestion.)

Kind regards,
-- 
Jochen Bern
Systemingenieur

Binect GmbH