RE: ietf.org end-to-end principle

[Josh Howlett <[e-mail]>]

Hi,

> It might be time to admit that end-to-end is not the one noble thing to aspire
> to; but instead to accept deployed reality and develop protocols which are of
> relevance in the presence of proxies, load-balancers, and more.

I don't personally see the case for e2e as one of nobility; its primarily an economic one. E2e places the cost of interoperability on the ends, where it belongs. These are the entities benefiting from the interoperation and so they should rightly bear the cost of that. When we break e2e we can reduce the cost of interoperability for some ends, but at the expense of others; either directly, or indirectly through the loss of utility, such as security as we're discussing in this instance. Like pollution that blows downwind from a factory, this transfer of costs to other actors is what economists call an negative externality. The cost of managing the system as a whole will tend to increase, its utility will tend to diminish, and eventually we end up with a lifeless pond.

We're not going to stop people from trying to find creative ways of making money from non-e2e solutions. Instead, we should focus on reducing the market opportunity by making it cheaper to do the right things, and having pragmatic solutions ready. I definitely don't think we should walk away from e2e; the Red Queen is running fast enough already.

Josh.

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