Hi Mikael,
I just had a thought.
What we're trying to do is to make sure there are IPv4 addresses available to new entrants. We're trying to do this by making a LIR get one post-exhaustion /22 each. The LIR fee is the limiting factor in trying to stop people from getting many /22:s. People have been trying to game this, by getting /22 and closing the LIR, thus avoiding the LIR fee. Changes in the policy has been all about trying to limit transfers etc, setting policy from what should happen with /22s, stopping transfers (so people still have to pay LIR fees, one per /22 etc).
Since it's actually the post-exhaustion /22 we're after why not do this:
The post-exhaustion /22 comes with a fee that is equivalent to the LIR fee. If a LIR contains one post-exhaustion /22, then this fee is waived.
Doesn't this just solve the problem everybody is arguing about? Now all of a sudden it's not cheap to get multiple /22s, and we don't care any more if people keep their LIRs open or not, it still costs the same.
We are always very careful with linking policy to charging. We tried that in the past and usually ran into some issues. If, however, the RIPE NCC would adapt the charging scheme in this way then it would probably make some policy proposals less relevant :) Cheers, Sander