I think the problem in the end is how we consider what is an public IP prefix. In my city (Madrid, Spain, if you have curiosity, welcome to the city hosting RIPE 73), we have taxis. A license to have a taxi is assigned for life and when the owner retires, he can sell it for whatever he wants and the market is able to pay. Of course the number of licenses is limited. We have also a electric car sharing system (car2go) that allow you to rent a car and pay for its usage. When the usage finish, the user return the car, no money returned, can't "sell" it because is not the owner. Of course the number of cars is limited. Those are two views on how to manage scarce resources. For some people public IP allocation should follow the first method. More "capitalist" it can be said, for others, the second, more "social", is the best. I'm of the second group. For me the IPs is something that is lend to me to do my work and not to trade them. Some time ago (before the last /8) I worked with a company that in one moment didn't need anymore their IPs (mother company delegated a range) so advised by me they returned them to RIPE and closed the LIR. That's how I see it. Note: my mail is educated and don't address nobody personally. Please keep the conversation at the same level. Demonstrate you're respected engineers and not hooligans. Enviado desde mi iPhone