Commodity (was RE: [Fwd: Kremen ...])

Tue Sep 12 09:11:52 UTC 2006

> You make an incorrect assumption - that IP addresses are currently free
> (they are not, in either money or time) and that commoditizing them will
> increase their cost (there is significant evidence it will not). 

You seem to think that commoditizing IP addresses will 
reduce their cost. Commoditization is changing an 
illiquid resource into a liquid resource, i.e. one
that can readily be converted to cash in an open market.
Since IP addresses are tightly tied to the network
architecture, how can they ever be liquid? If they
cannot become liquid then they can never be a commodity
in the first place.

For example, let's compare gold and uranium. Both metals
are very valuable. Gold can be bought and sold at any
time on an open market. It is a commodity. But uranium is
not as liquid. There are few buyers and sellers. Trades
happen too infrequently to establish an open market. There
are restrictions on posession and transport of the material.
In the end, uranium is not a commodity and is not liquid.
IP adresses are more like uranium than gold.

--Michael Dillon