The goal here is a working network. If every 192.* "C" network that had been allocated in the long ago were to be advertised tomorrow, that would add 2**16 routes to the global table and a lot of the net would fall apart. If every wants-to-be-ISP got a /19, address space wastage would be immense and we would be into the n>=224 "E" multicast space already, with the end clearly in sight. Previously allocated blocks are not reclaimed when an ISP goes out of business, they usually pass on with the technical folks and they soon show up as part of some garage-band ISP elsewhere. Market and technical pressures have established an equilibrium. It is a damned shame that a group of people with lots of money and technical savvy in the data communications field cannot just start up and compete head to head with more established players, competing on the basis of price and service levels and so on. Peering and address space have become barriers to entry and this has been universally bad in the history of communications. As the existing players discover the horizon effects on growth, such that an ISP over a certain size can no longer simply grow in order to add customers, they will start spinning things off rather than integrating them vertically. That's the point where newcomers will next have an opportunity to enter the market without severe barriers. It is also dimly possible that ubiquitous ATM, and IPv6, and NIMROD will all bear fruit and the market will enter a healthier period of total chaos. For now the barriers to entry are real, and the people whose participation is needed for changing them, are too busy growing, buying eachother, and making tons of money to be bothered levelling out the playing field. We'd already be reading about a Consent Decree if the problem weren't so international in scope.