[awinder]

Down in the comments on a linked article exposes the detail:

“This article is badly misinformed on a key point. Booz didn't receive anything upfront to set up recreation.gov. They funded the upfront costs out of their own pocket, and in return they stuck a deal with the US Gov't to collect a per-transaction fee to recover those costs (as well as cover ongoing maintenance and administration). The quoted figure of $182 million is their estimated revenue over the 10-year term of the contract, not an upfront payment. You may not like that arrangement, and maybe you think it was corrupt, but you don't have to misrepresent it.”

So realistically what’s happening is that if BLM or whoever set up the site and maintained it, they would have had higher base fees to close the budget gap. Now if the fee is higher with BAH running things that would be a good reason to maybe not structure things in such a way on future contracts, but I’m not convinced it is meaningfully so.

This is also a downstream consequence of never raising tax revenue while starving out budget lines that aren’t DoD. I’m not like a BAH fanboy or whatever but they’re a distant consequence of a system of government that doesn’t tax (or even enforce tax) appropriately on its richest members.

[g8oz]

Notwithstanding the contract structure it's still a grift by BAH. Being screwed by rent seeking private entities over access to public resources is a common enough theme in modern life that it represents a notable threat to people's faith in society.