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RE: draft-ietf-nat-protocol-complications-02.txt

2000-07-11 07:40:03
I don't see any problems people making money 
on weird NAT-munging-weirdo-webonly-wap things 
which they sell to customers

"Making money" implies that for every seller
there is a willing buyer. For NAT to have
progressed from a twinkle-in-the-eye to the
near ubiquity that it will have in a few
years, there need to be a *lot* of willing
buyers. The marketplace rewards those who
satisfy a perceived need. 

If we would prefer that those customers
choose another solution (IPv6), then we
will need to make it every bit as easy 
to install and use as the alternative. 

However, even that may not be enough --
because history tells us that displacing
a deeply entrenched competitor (IPv4 + NAT) 
can generally only be accomplished by 
exploiting points of inflection. Perhaps 
Wireless and Infiniband will provide 
the required inflection points; we will see.

BUT, it is NOT Internet access.

I'm not sure that in practice this is a
distinction that will ever be universally
understood in the marketplace. AOL isn't
Internet access either, but it serves
more than 25 million users. As with
NAT, AOL thrives because it fills a
perceived need better than the alternative.

I would not buy it, because I want Internet access.

Perhaps it is more instructive to turn the tables
and complete the sentence:

"I would prefer {insert abomination here} to Internet
Access because {insert reason for preferring 
abomination}"

Then, try to complete an alternative sentence:

"I would prefer IPv6 to {insert abomination here} because
in addition to providing {insert reason for preferring
abomination} it can also enable my business to grow
faster in ways that IPv4 and {insert abomination here} 
cannot provide: {insert tangible business benefits of 
IPv6 here}"

The goal is to repeat the exercise until the above 
sentence convinces large numbers of customers 
(who may not know what Internet Access is) to part
with their money.