Hi Daniel,
you still pay only *membership* fee. It's not a per-IP cost, even if it can look like that. Old resource holders pays similar fee independently from number of IP addresses they hold.
RIPE NCC members can change this charging scheme, right? It was not like this always...
One of goals is *conservation*, and initial assignment of /24 helps with that - and not each new LIR really needs /22. There're lot of organisationss having single /24 (old PI allocations) from the past and they're still happy with that. These were allocated to end users, are routed and also nobody concerned about routing table size. Since posibility of PI alocations was ceased, new organisations have to become "full LIR" - and then you receive /22, automatically - even you don't need it. We're simply wasting limited addres space here - just because something "simplified" and "automated".
An org will not be limited to /24 even with this proposal; they can open additional LIRs to get more. Or register a new business if RIPE NCC bans multi LIR again. It is not easy to say that we are wasting limited address space by allocating /22, the ones need less than an /22 can transfer their free blocks to others who are in need (even new entrants) after two years or lease them immediately. Maybe there are some LIRs don’t fully utilize their /22 as soon as they receive the allocation, but what about the ones got their allocations before last /8 policy, are they all fully used? The actual wasting was done somewhere else years ago, and nobody cares about that now. Regards, Arash