[mc32]

There are two problems with that. One is that for previous and future traditional ascenders it would "cheapen" the experience. In essence it makes scaling it mundane, so you would have elitists oppose this. The second is that unless you institute a limited lottery system Everest would become littered like mt Fujiyama. So basically nature becomes spoiled by commercial interests.

So given those choices, what's the answer?

[Retric]

Everest is already covered in junk and dead bodies. Most of this is hidden by snow, but it's a lot closer to a walking up a snowy trash heap than people want to admit.* A little over 4 thousand people have reached the summet which is about the same number of billionares in the world. So, it feels fairly prestegious even if it's mostly a question of how much your willing to spend to get there.

*Mostly becase people use a small set of trails on their assent, and really don't have the enery to bring their trash down with them. The majority of the mountain is untouched, but the trails get a lot of traffic.

[smm2000]

That gandola won't be cheap to build. Better solution is to auction spots or set price high enough that only limited number of people can afford it.