[9418] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Aikens last (but long) posting/comments on ISOC and related issues
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Einar Stefferud)
Tue Jan 4 22:46:51 1994
To: ietf@ietf.cnri.reston.va.us, com-priv@psi.com,
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 04 Jan 1994 07:49:56 PST."
Reply-To: Stef@nma.com
From: Einar Stefferud <Stef@nma.com>
Date: Tue, 04 Jan 1994 19:35:17 -0800
I want to chime in with support for Bob Aiken asking his questions,
and to register concern about people who are concerned that such
questioning will hurt the ISOC. In my view, it hurts the ISOC more
when people react to questions with charges of harming ISOC!
Any organization that cannot stand questioning, and which does not
have answers other than to challenge the questioner's motives and
interests in the well being of the ISOC, is indeed in need of exactly
Bob's kind of questioning!
+++++
Now -- On another more positive track, I want to challenge the idea
that the Internet is dependent upon the good will of its participants,
as has been suggested by Vint and others.
If the good will of the IETF/IAB/ISOC participants is the only thing
holding the Internet together, it will surely fall apart one day.
I think that its longevity so far must be dependent on more than the
good will of some of some participants. It may feel good to claim
that good will is doing the job, if you are one of the good willed
folk, but that is not going to save the Internet if one day the real
(non-goodwill) glue that holds it together comes unstuck.
So, I suggest that we enquire into what it is that really holds the
Internet together. Toward this end, I suggest that it is not the
authoritative legal cover of ISOC, or the new bureaucratic
institutions of the IETF, or simple good will, that holds the Internet
together.
I believe it stems from the simple economic and social fact that many
(if not all) of us earn a good living by doing what we are doing to
make The Internet work, and that the Internet delivers great value to
those who elect to participate.
So, I look to the incentives that exist in the Internet Organizational
Paradigm, which is different than the organizational paradigm of any
other networking enterprise. It was Herb Simon many years ago who
taught me that (in my own words):
If you want to understand what is really going on,
look to the incentive structure to find the
motivations of the participants!
When you understand the incentives and motivations,
then you will understand why the
organization does what it does.
So, I see The Internet as a power aggregation mechanism, in which
participants must invest in the common good in order to take from the
common pot. Indeed, as The Internet is now organized, each subscriber
to a connection must understand that the quality of service obtained
depends entirely on the quality of the administration given to the
connection and the local environment behind it. In short, each
connectee is responsible for the quality of their own end of every
connection.
Also, each IP Service Provider must understand that they only control
one portion of the connection between customer pairs, and that their
customers only want complete two ended connections. One-endedness
with excuses about the other end is not acceptable, or worth paying
for.
So, I see The Internet glue in the economic paradigm, and this is one
reason I do not advocate removal of our "no-settlement" policy, since
it is my expectation that its removal will put The Internet in peril
of losing its glue!
Just a little food for thought;-)...\Stef
