Re: Registration details for IETF 108

[Michael StJohns <[e-mail]>]

Bob et al -

My guess is that the in-person fees were providing at least some subsidy 
for the remote attendees. There are costs to provide the infrastructure 
for recording and streaming each of the sessions (and those include the 
time of the secretariat and other staff to set things up).   My further 
guess is that we have no clue about the actual cost to provide "just 
online" even with all that happened for 107 and that the fee number they 
came up with is nothing more than a good guess which will be refined 
each time we do an on-line only meeting (plus all of the 100+ virtual 
interim/non-interim WG sessions we're still having that have to be paid 
for somehow).

I think the LLC did a good job in balancing conflicting needs by 
providing the possibility of fee waivers.   To be honest, I wish the fee 
waiver were only partial as I think having some skin in the game from 
all of us is important.  I don't remember who said it, but "People don't 
value things they get for free" seems somewhat applicable.

Later, Mike




On 6/1/2020 11:39 AM, Bob Hinden wrote:
> Jason,
>
> I think the issue here is that we are now charging for something we didn’t before.  That is, we allowed remote participation at IETF meetings without a fee unto and including IETF 107.   As Brian points out, this change in policy was done with out any discussion.
>
> I also note that everything we do in the IETF has a cost to it.  Every email, internet draft, submission to the IESG, working group charter, IETF tool, etc., etc.  We can see all these costs in the IETF LLC budget.    None of it is free.
>
> The question is which of these do we charge for?    According the budget at:
>
>    https://ietf.org/blog/ietf-administration-llc-2020-budget/
>
> the non-meeting operating expenses are about $5.1 million per year.   Even the meeting revenue (including registration fees) doesn’t cover all of the meeting expenses.   That is, $3.8M revenue vs. $4.1M costs.
>
> How do we decide what to charge for?   What is the policy?
>
> Also, what does the budget look like without face to face meetings?
>
> Bob
>
>
>