[hinkley]

The friction of requiring volunteer hours would probably buy them another ten years of runway to solve that problem.

https://www.seattle.gov/neighborhoods/programs-and-services/... has a required number of hours per year to get - and retain - an allotment. It's meant to reduce entropy and keep the waiting list a bit shorter. A couple of things on this list https://www.seattle.gov/neighborhoods/programs-and-services/... can get you your hours in faster, which bumps you up a little bit in the queue. I'd like to see that ramp more aggressively but that would discriminate against blue collar workers.

Everest doesn't have that problem, though. Climbing it is, in many ways, a statement of privilege already. If you issued permits to the 100 people with the most volunteer hours in that year, you'd solve a whole host of problems.