[ryandrake]

As a non-hiker, I had no idea access to national parks was gated behind some unholy combination of Ticketmaster and gambling. This is asinine--but a uniquely American flavor of asinine. The fact that a private business consulting company collects most of the money makes it even more American Asinine. I feel like my fingers are turning red, white, and blue just typing that out.

I (naively) always thought you just drove to your destination, parked and went hiking.

[ploxiln]

Most places in the US are like that - just show up. Some places are too popular and would be way too crowded, and the situation is pretty dire for the most majestic and famous places around SF.

I did the popular half dome trail in yosemite, jeez ... 10 years ago, and despite the limits it was quite a crowded line, at the cable you hold while climbing up the slope of the dome. My family goes hiking in Shenandoah in Virginia almost every year (probably 15 times in my life) and we don't reserve entry or trails or anything, and there's no lines.

Anyway, it's a kinda funny situation - do you want to promote the outdoors to the general populace? Do you want them to be accessible to all? Well you just can't, the popular places will be absolutely crushed and destroyed and quite dangerous too. There's plenty of un-popular places people could go, but they're not popular ...

[zhoujianfu]

They should just make it a raffle instead of first come first served. That’s what all the online drop collectible places do now after a few years of fighting the bot arms race.

[shp0ngle]

...do people actually read the articles before commenting?

There is a raffle. And the money from the ruffle goes to Booz Allen Hamilton.

[klempner]

The legitimate "raffle" structure in question does not typically require people to pay if they don't win the raffle.

[ghaff]

So long as people have to pay if they win the raffle, I'm hard put to see the justification for a raffle entry fee.

[skyyler]

Isn't it obvious? Revenue!

[giantg2]

No, it appears half the people here did not read the article nor even look at the graphs.

[greenie_beans]

not for every park. permits for backpacking in glacier national park, which is one of the most coveted permits in the country, was first come first served this year.

[jefftk]

The article doesn't say that Booz's contract lets them keep the lottery fees--do they?

[clusterhacks]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/national-park-fees-booz-allen-6...

[lifeonlars]

Who do you think gets them if they don't go to the parks service?

[93po]

maybe the hat and tie wearing bears in the parks are running the lotteries and stealing the money for themselves

[cldellow]

Canada has some national parks that do something like this. Lake O'Hara's booking system this year is a random queue:

> In lieu of a random draw, Parks Canada will be employing a queuing system to help manage the expected high demand. Users may navigate to the reservation service webpage beginning at 7:30 AM. At 8:00 AM all users waiting will be randomly assigned a place in the queue. This is not influenced by how long users have been waiting. Any users arriving to the website after 8:00 am will be placed in the back of the line. When users reach their turn, they will be alerted via an on-screen message. At that point, they have 30 minutes to proceed to the reservation website and make a reservation.

[geraldwhen]

If this is queue-it, there are mass automation tools. Even if it isnt, $50 in resi proxies will give you 100 positions in the queue vs 1.

Source: I won a lot of queues by Sony, AMD, and Walmart.

[Retric]

Holding a lottery without limiting people to one entry by say requiring your name to enter is dumb, but I am not surprised this happens.

[geraldwhen]

Gerald, Gerrald, Ger.ald.

Sony was restricting PS5s by address at one point, but adding an apartment number (to a house) or a 0 to an address got around the limit for the first year.

Depending on how valuable the item is, an incredible amount of manpower will go into defeating bot protections. I made a lot of money after spending a lot of time doing adversarial research and bot development.

[ghaff]

I'm going to say that, in this day and age, an online reservation system for very scarce reservations that basically requires sniping to win a slot is a bad system.

[refurb]

This is what they do with The Wave.

I believe they allow 20 per day. 10 are first-come first-served and 10 are a lottery you can enter for a few dollars in advance.

Seems pretty fair to me.

[shp0ngle]

...that is exactly what the actual article is talking about.

The lottery makes most money go to Booz Allen Hamilton.

[refurb]

How do we know the money goes to Booz Allen? Presumably there is some sort of contract between BAH the government to run Recreation.gov?

Does BAH keep the whole fee? Do they keep some of it? Did they get paid $0 and only get the fee?

[giantg2]

A lot of that is in the article. Nice little graphs of it too.

[nofunsir]

YES they keep the whole lottery fee.

WORSE YET, they get to set the fee themselves! The park system just goes along with what they pick.

They got in trouble for this because by law there was supposed to be a public comment period regarding fee changes.

They got some judge or official to sign off something saying effectively: "x = whatever BAH decides; Fee = x;"

[lifeonlars]

They keep the whole fee.

[ghaff]

The issue is that the losers still apparently pay. Take that away and I agree that some variant of this is probably the optimal system given too many people and not enough slots.

[oh_sigh]

What would stop bot makers from just having thousands of their bots enter the raffle?

[tshaddox]

Charging a nominal fee to enter the raffle might. Like how all raffles work by definition.

[kwhitefoot]

Just make the ticket personal and non-transferable. No need to disadvantage the poor to make it 'fair'.

[throwaway049]

Glastonbury Festival does non-transferable by having a long period to register interest and upload a photo of yourself, then if you snag a ticket your photo gets printed on it and checked at the entrance.

Their primary problem was resellers - it's still a scramble when the ticket sale begins.

[giantg2]

That's covered in the article.

[actionfromafar]

That might help a little but rich people will just eat the cost of thousands of fees.

[bell-cot]

IF the money was going to maintain the park, then "$10 for a chance to get in, or $10,000 to buy your way in" sounds relatively unobjectionable. It's not like the current Congress is likely to raise taxes on the rich.

[throw9away6]

Why not just make it a reverse auction at that point? That’s the end state anyway

[bluecalm]

This happens for material things all the time (collectibles, snickers, limited edition of anything) but in case of experiences (concerts, access to trails) the id verification at entry is a good mechanism to defend against it.

[eru]

Why a raffle and not an auction?

Auctions are the standard way to find a price that balances supply and demand.

(Give poor people money, if you think they need the help. No need to decide for them what is best for them by giving them help in the form of tickets. Are you afraid they'll buy booze instead?)

[et-al]

If all one cares about are that only their fellow millionaires get to savor some publicly-owned campsites, then sure that's a great solution.

[eru]

Give poor people money, if you think they need the help. No need to decide for them what is best for them by giving them help in the form of tickets.

Giving them a ticket is equivalent to giving them money, but restricting it be spent on park tickets only. Very condescending and paternalistic, isn't it?

Are you afraid they are going to spend their ticket money on booze?

[unionpivo]

Not from USA, but my opinion on raffles vs auctions:

Raffle is not giving them money. Raffle is giving them a chance. No matter how much money you give to poor people, rich people will always be able to afford to outbid them.

So sure, giving money to poor people (or better jet, making sure they get decent pay in the first place) is good idea.

And raffle makes sure, prices stay reasonable so that even poor/middle class people can on occasion enjoy the parks.

You do auctions when you want to maximize profit. You do raffles when you need to rate limit access to a limited resource.

[et-al]

Uh, it wouldn't be just poor people. It'd be the bottom 98%. You're proposing turning certain national/state-owned campsites into luxury experiences.

(Though arguably with bots and scrapers, that's maybe what they are now anyway.)

[lozenge]

There are enough rich people to make the auction price of a ticket at a desirable location $1,000 and we know there is never going to be enough redistribution to prevent that. What you're suggesting would realistically make the activity inaccessible.

[mnky9800n]

This is a very top down thinking approach. Yes we should give poor people money. But actually is that the job of parks? Perhaps parks should try to be as equitable as possible to let whoever wants in entry. Then a raffle not an auction is the best way to do it.

[olivermuty]

This argument is nonsensical unless you suggest the tickets should be sellable.

False equivalent argumentation.

Edit: Excellent idea to give poor people money either way though. UBI!

[karmakurtisaani]

You face a lot if opposition, but I fully agree with you. This is basic economic thinking.

Somehow people are fine with having healthcare, education, housing, transportation etc. being driven by market forces, but parks not? In my opinion the state should absolutely cash in on the lucrative public parks. Otherwise you will and up with scalpers and other perversions that will take their cut in pricing the true value of this good.

Giving poor people money in form of UBI or tax breaks is the way to go in distributing all public goods.

[hnbad]

Or just raise the ceiling income tax rate and introduce a wealth tax so there are fewer ultra-rich people skewing the "market price". You could then use the extra tax income to fund public services like housing, transit, medical care and food so the poor have more freely disposable income.

Wait, I thought we were talking about parks?

[lazyasciiart]

Then you need to give all the poor people enough money to outbid all the rich people - otherwise no individual poor person can win the auction. Sounds a lot more expensive than letting people self select and assigning tickets based on some method other than money.

[lifeonlars]

Does this apply to all public goods, or are there limits to this principle?

For example, is it paternalistic to supply clean water via a municipal utility? Do you think that the commonwealth should give poor people enough money to buy clean water in a public market?

[throw9away6]

If the number of entries is unlimited then it’s essentially an auction anyway

[eru]

Yes, if the number of tickets you can buy for the raffle is unlimited, and the number of winners per day is fixed; then the raffle is just a more complicated, less predictable equivalent of an auction.

[xnorswap]

Auctions are terrible because of the uneven distribution of wealth.

You end up with a situation where the wealthy can do everything and the poor can do nothing.

And then there's the super rich, who could buy out the possibility of anyone else participating, literally turning such places into their private playground for eternity if they so wished.

Like, what price could you price it at where:

1. You could afford to go occassionally

2. Elon Musk couldn't just buy out every single ticket for the next decade to make it their personal playground.

There's simply no feasible solution to that.

Just auctioning everything and letting capitalism take its course just denies a vast segment of society from participating at all for activities where demand outstrips supply.

Supply & Demand only works if supply can be increased, so that as prices rise there's incentive for greater supply.

For things like National Parks or Taylor Swift concerts, price discovery through "supply and demand" does not work because supply can't increase to match supply no matter the price.

[Sankozi]

Not sure how you come up with point 1 when talking about auctions of a very limited resource. Lets focus on the point 2.

You are vastly overestimating buying power of the richest people. Lets assume that some of them are really irrational and want to buy access to the single place by selling whole their wealth.

X entries per day, 365 day in a year, that is 3650*x tickets to buy out to cover 10 years.

Musk wealth: 171 000 000 000

Divided by 3650 = 46 849 315

If we sell only 50 tickets daily it is less than million of $ that Musk have available for each ticket.

There is over 60 million people with wealth higher wealth than that. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/203930/global-wealth-dis...).

If park increases number of tickets to 500 daily (~21 per hour) then we are talking about 600 million richest people that can try to outbid Musk on a single ticket.

In reality people like Musk probably would never spend even 1/100 of their wealth for any single attraction. If they had, they would not be that rich. Additionally park could easily increase number of tickets if those are not used.

[HWR_14]

> If we sell only 50 tickets daily it is less than million of $ that Musk have available for each ticket.

Wow, and for anyone else for only a million dollars people can buy an entire day in what was once a free federal location!

Meanwhile, let's look at Yellowstone. Over a decade, they will sell about $110MM in passes (just a 10x of what they generated recently.) Let's say at an auction the passes go for an average of 20x that. So for $2.2 billion, someone can buy exclusive access to a 2.2 million acre federal park for a decade.

A 20x multiple is pretty high too.

> reality people like Musk probably would never spend even 1/100 of their wealth for any single attraction.

Musk spent approximately 20% of his wealth on an internet toy.

[eru]

Give poor people money, if you want to help them.

Giving them a park ticket is equivalent to giving them the auction price for the ticket but restricting them to use it on park tickets. Very condescending and paternalistic.

> Supply & Demand only works if supply can be increased, so that as prices rise there's incentive for greater supply.

No? Where did you get that idiosyncratic notion from?

Auctions work just fine for eg van Gogh paintings, and they have been in decidedly fixed supply since 1890.

Auctions also work well for things that are in fixed demand. Of course, in that case you have suppliers bid, not buyers.

You can also have a two-sided auction where both suppliers and buyers bid.

[xnorswap]

If the goal is for everyone to own a Van Gogh, then yes those auctions have failed.

A goal of national parks should be that everyone has the opportunity to visit at least one over their lifetimes.

Or we're left with needing charity to step in and buy tickets on behalf of the needy.

[unionpivo]

> Give poor people money, if you want to help them.

Giving poor people money will not help the situation. How much money do you need to give to a family, that would want to have a picnic over the weekend, so that Bill Gates and Elon Musk and others, could not outbid them.

Yeah wont happen in real world. I wont assume bad faith from you, but generally speaking saying just give them money is a huge copout.

> Auctions work just fine for eg van Gogh paintings, and they have been in decidedly fixed supply since 1890.

Glad you brought that up.

Van Goh sold his paintings and owners of such paintings then sell them on auctions etc.

There are people in the art world who would argue that such paintings do belong in Museums, so that public can enjoy them. So they band together and collect money so that their local museum can afford to buy such Van Goh painting.

After such painting are displayed in Museum where anyone can view them, for a fixed price, that generally covers the upkeep.

Which is the same situation as here. there is a public park (that is by definition there to be used by the public), that sells tickets, that should cover the upkeep. But since the demand is too high, it sometimes need to raffle them.

Auctions would defeat the purpose.

[actionfromafar]

So in your envisaged ultra-communist society, where wealth has been distributed enough for the (formerly) poor people to bid on a level playing field against the (formerly, relatively speaking) rich people, now what do you do?

[lukas099]

This would be politically unviable. Just look at responses to your comment.

[eru]

Indeed. Though that doesn't mean it's a bad idea.

You know how eg abolishing slavery or letting women vote was once politically unviable.

[bluecalm]

It's not like raffle solves the problem. Instead of bots you can multi accounters/users. The logistics is more complicated but doable if the item is desirable enough.

[cowsandmilk]

Grand Canyon’s river lottery doesn’t use recreation.gov and has measures to prevent multi accounters including lifetime bans (which have been enforced) if you apply with multiple accounts in the same lottery.

[bluecalm]

I was answering to a comment any collectibles. There multi-accounting is rampant and little can be done about it. When it comes to non-physical goods then a lot more can be done about enforcement.

[greiskul]

For something physical, specially something run by the government, you can ask people during account creation for some identification like full name + date of birth, not allow duplicate accounts to enter the same raffle, and check the id of the winners when they get there (so you don't have companies creating bots).

[throw9away6]

Harder to game, if desired enough people will still game it by buying entries for others

[TeMPOraL]

What if we tackled the bot arms race differently? Instead of fighting it, embrace it - and fight the market for support services instead. That is, let people script their way if they want to, just make them do it in the open, and treat it as a match-making problem.

The scheme would be as follows. There's N levels on the ladder, with some amount of tickets allocated to each level. Bottom level is for normal people without tech augmentation; most tickets are allocated there, and aggressive bot detection is employed. You can implement a raffle there if it feels more fair. Remaining levels on the ladder are for those who want a chance to get ahead with automation. Apply Elo or whatever chess players or Overwatch uses to make sure people compete at their level of sophistication. This would reward and incentivize individuals learning useful life skills, while making selling the tools less useful.

Of course I can think of 10 reasons why this wouldn't work in practice, but hey, I never heard anyone even considering this idea before, so maybe it can be rescued somehow.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

I want to go hiking, not play some stupid game.

[0_____0]

It's getting to the point where areas that are under consideration for becoming National Park land get significant pushback from locals — we don't want to become another Yellowstone, they say!

In the Northeast you do see some spots getting a little crowded but it's absolutely nothing like the tourism-industrial complex that are the big western national parks. Acadia is about as bad as it gets here, but mostly it looks like "theres a lot of folks here." Yellowstone is a mess of badly driven RVs, yahoos ripping around on rented side-by-sides, just a lot of really ugly concentrated MURCA.

[InitialLastName]

> Acadia is about as bad as it gets here,

Acadia is about all there is in the northeast, in terms of National Parks.

The positive side is that there's a ton of wilderness in the northeast that doesn't suffer from the National Park marketing badge (and thus any draw from the rest of the country), and so are less insane. Even so, some of the state parks within a reasonable trip of NYC (notably Harriman/Bear Mountain) can get a bit crazy.

[ghaff]

There is now the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument in Maine--although that was (and probably still is) controversial among some locals. It's fairly remote by northeastern standards. It's adjacent to Baxter State Park but the latter significantly limits cars in the popular area of the park.

The issue for locals wasn't so much crowding as I recall but concerns about restrictions to traditional sporting uses of the land. I haven't really followed how all that played out.

[InitialLastName]

Ah, I didn't realize that had been nationalized (not technically a "National Park" though).

I've paddled through the "waters" bit a few times (geez, 20 years ago); lack of access would definitely help the overcrowding.

[ghaff]

Relatively recent. Basically a big land donation from the Burt's Bees co-founder finally helped made it happen. And, yeah, although the National Parks tend to be "better" (i.e. more compelling), the distinction is mostly a political one. (I see they allow hunting in certain areas which also probably helped move it over the finish line.) At least in the vaguely recent past, most properties become National Monuments before they become parks. Acadia was Lafayette National Monument before it became a national park.

I haven't been up there yet. Soon. But like a lot of Maine lands in that general area, it's probably more paddling/fishing oriented than hiking (at least if you're into summits). (Even a lot of Baxter other than Katahdin is like that.)

[ghaff]

Acadia is broken up enough that, if you stay away from certain sections of the park loop road and Mt. Cadillac, it's pretty manageable. Though even the western parks are a bit like that. The Yosemite Valley is a mob scene for much of the year. But there are actually pretty large and very nice sections of the park that aren't nearly as bad.

[allturtles]

> My family goes hiking in Shenandoah in Virginia almost every year (probably 15 times in my life) and we don't reserve entry or trails or anything, and there's no lines.

I went to look up hikes in Shenandoah since this sounds like it could be part of a nice road trip with my family, and ironically I found that the most popular trailhead requires getting tickets through recreation.gov: https://www.nps.gov/shen/planyourvisit/faqs-oldrag.htm

So perhaps the problem is spreading?

Luckily it seems it's not nearly at "The Wave" levels of scarcity, you can actually get tickets on most days: https://www.recreation.gov/ticket/10088450/ticket/10088451

[alistairSH]

Old Rag is a fairly unique hike for the area. The upper part of the hike is an exposed rock scramble with good views. The hike, in total, is long enough to be challenging, but not really technical or dangerous. And it's close enough to DC (<2 hours) that weekends were a madhouse, especially during COVID.

The remained of the park, and all the surrounding areas, are first-come, either free or with minimal permit/entrance fees.

[ghaff]

Day hiking permits are fairly uncommon on US federal lands in my experience.

Backpacking permits are significantly more common but except for the extreme cases as are mentioned in the article are fairly easy to come by--except maybe at the most extreme times--and are commonly free (except for maybe parking).

[foobar_______]

Reservations only became required for Old Rag somewhat recently. I think this is a covid thing. I'm really torn, I want people to be happy and healthy outside but covid and social media has made doing this a mad house. Regulating day tickets is a necessity at most places nowadays

[rob74]

The exception that confirms the rule is The Wave, which is located somewhere in the middle of nowhere on the Utah-Arizona border and only accessible via a lengthy hike, but has the distinction of having been the epitome of "instagrammable" already years before Instagram was invented: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wave_(Arizona)

[tshaddox]

I’m not sure what you mean about that being an exception. The Wikipedia article details an extremely strict application process to access that place.

[rob74]

What I meant is that it's not one of the "majestic and famous places around SF", like Yosemite, it's really remote - but due to the strict limitation to only ~64 people per day, it's still the most sought after destination (making the most money for Booz Allen Hamilton).

[tiedieconderoga]

You can just show up and park. You can buy an annual pass directly from the government for ~$100 that covers campsite/entrance fees in pretty much every national park, or put some cash in an envelope with a form and leave it in a dropbox at the lot.

The problem is peak seasons. If you show up to Yellowstone without a reservation on the 4th of July weekend, you'll be lucky if you can even get into the park, much less stay there or appreciate its natural beauty.

So if you want to visit a park during a holiday, school vacation week, or most of the Summer, you need to deal with the bloated mess of a ticketing system which was created by the cheapest new grads that the lowest-bidding rent-seeking leech of a contractor could come up with.

My advice: get used to cold weather and visit in the off season. Nobody is making reservations to hike in Bryce Canyon in the middle of December.

[ghaff]

One caveat. The America the Beautiful pass does not cover campgrounds that have a nightly fee.

In general, I agree about trying to go to parks off peak season (and getting away from the more popular trails). That said, your hiking and other options can be a lot more limited at many parks that get a lot of snow in the winter relative to other seasons even if you have winter gear. (I've been to Bryce in the winter and it was hard to follow a trail in the canyon.)

[patrickwalton]

That said, Bryce canyon is stunning in the middle of December (if there's snow).

[elbigbad]

The post to whom you’re responding definitely overstates it. Most places are mostly just show up, there’s regularly or always ways to simply day hike anywhere — including the Enchantments, which are unrestricted for day hiking and I’ve personally day hiked in a day. Not allowing all comers on all days is prudent because our national parks are a precious resource. I’ve personally seen trails being eroded over years, it stinks, and more people on those trails cause more erosion. But yes you nearly always can simply drive out, park, and hike.

BAH is a scourge and absolutely a problem though.

[throwaway2037]

    I’ve personally seen trails being eroded over years, it stinks, and more people on those trails cause more erosion.

Why don't they rotate the trails? I've seen this done on Jeju, South Korea. They close an over-worn section, then open a parallel section.

[whinenot]

Oftentimes, there is only one physically possible route to the most popular Instagramable view, like Vernal Fall in Yosemite NP or Angels Landing in Zion NP.

[throwaway2037]

    most popular Instagramable view

Oh, that makes sense. Ok, then close the trail for 6-12 months. That should do.

[eru]

They should just auction the ticket off. Very straight-forward, and all the money can go to the park.

(Give poor people money, if you think they need the help. No need to decide for them what is best for them by giving them help in the form of tickets.)

[greiskul]

If all the money goes to the park, none is going to the poor people. Seems like you are advocating for a system where rich people get to go to public parks, and poor people get nothing.

And if you are doing a raffle for park tickets, you are not deciding to "help them in the form of tickets" for them. They signed up for the tickets. They want to go to the park. Is it a bad idea to allow poor people that want to access a park to have a chance of doing so?

And auctions are a way of optimizing pricing of stuff. But not everything in life is about money. For instance, organ donation recipients. Do you think an auction system for organs would be a better world than the existing systems? Should we just give the poor people that wouldn't be able to afford an auction for an organ some money, and then let them die?

[eru]

> If all the money goes to the park, none is going to the poor people. Seems like you are advocating for a system where rich people get to go to public parks, and poor people get nothing.

I don't understand. It seems like you are suggesting mixing up your welfare system with your park system?

I suggest: have one system that gives poor people money. And have another different system to run the parks.

> Do you think an auction system for organs would be a better world than the existing systems?

Yes, vastly superior. Thanks for bringing this up.

See eg https://www.econlib.org/archives/2014/06/the_fungible_ki.htm... ro https://www.econtalk.org/tina-rosenberg-on-the-kidney-market... or https://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2012/SheltonMcKenzi... or https://www.econlib.org/archives/2003/03/organ_transplan.htm...

[bobsmooth]

>If all the money goes to the park, none is going to the poor people. Seems like you are advocating for a system where rich people get to go to public parks, and poor people get nothing.

Poor people weren't going to enter a lottery for the chance to visit a park anyway. At least this plan gives all the money to the park.

[arrrg]

Those lotteries generally do have a relatively high likelihood of getting you a spot. Paying $10 for a fifty percent chance of a permit vs. paying $100 in an auction does make a difference.

I really don’t understand where your claim that poor people wouldn’t enter the lottery is coming from. That seems like a nonsensical conclusion to me.

To me a lottery seems like the perfect solution, it‘s just that some of the current implementation details suck.

The fee to enter should be quite low, its only function to reduce gambling the system (besides having policies in place that also do that). It should not be possible to enter multiple times.

The service provider of the lottery should not be paid proportional or in relation to how many people enter the lottery. At least not in any kind of directly coupled way. All income from the lottery should first go to the parks and then they pay the service provider from that income.

And that‘s the problem solved.

Lotteries are fair, at least if you can’t enter multiple times and if the chance of getting a permit is still somewhat decent.

[eru]

> Those lotteries generally do have a relatively high likelihood of getting you a spot. Paying $10 for a fifty percent chance of a permit vs. paying $100 in an auction does make a difference.

What makes you think that the auction price would go up to $100?

Assuming they sell raffle tickets to all comers, but they have a limited, fixed number of winners per day that gain entry; then I would assume that world where a $10 ticket give you a 50% chance of entry is a world where the auction clearing price would be roughly $20.

The kind of lottery you describe (where you can enter multiple times) is basically equivalent to an auction. Just more complicated and less predictable.

[pr0zac]

> Poor people weren't going to enter a lottery for the chance to visit a park anyway.

What? Poor people like to take vacations also and national parks were traditionally a rather cheap way to do so.

Theres also a lot of poor folks who's purpose in life is literally visiting those parks. Recreation.gov owns big wall climbing permits for Yosemite for instance and a significant number of young dirt bag climbers that live in their cars in order to climb full time and are very definitely poor apply for those every year.

[rjmunro]

All the money could go to the park from the lottery if they set up the contract that way. Alternatively, they could set up a contract such that the park gets a fixed amount per visitor no matter what the auction price ends up being.

I think they should do half the tickets by lottery, half by auction. Lottery tickets should require ID and/or photo upload when you enter to prevent reselling. The lottery/auction operator should get a percentage of the total money, with the park service keeping most of it.

[refurb]

That doesn’t make a lot of sense.

If you give poor people money so every can equally bid on the auction, then why not just make it a lottery and not bother giving poor people money they’ll just give back through auction?

[maxerickson]

Presumably they are talking about giving poor people money out of a different bucket, so it isn't "just" going back through the auction, the people that receive it have the opportunity to allocate it to their needs and desires.

[eru]

You give poor people money, so they can make their own decisions on what they want to spend it on.

Instead of restricting them ad hoc to eg national park entries or whatever you think should be provided in-kind by raffles.

[refurb]

If your goal is to make national park entries more fair that seems like a very indirect way of doing it.

[ricw]

You can quickly complain to governor newsom via this link (the article lists mostly Californian parks - hence this being appropriate):

https://www.gov.ca.gov/contact/

[greenie_beans]

i think you'd need to complain to your federal representatives since the national parks and the booz allen contract are overseen by the federal government