13 ms·

The money spent on lotteries doesn’t go to the park

465 points by jordanvincent 3y ago

nahnahg 3y ago
[dead]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ke88y 3y ago
Saying it goes to "recreation.gov" misses the point. It goes to Booz Allen Hamilton. Booz are effectively stealing insane amounts of taxpayer dollars to run an extremely simple CRUD website. And no, it's not "actually complex and just looks like CRUD". It's really just CRUD built on AWS services. IMO? If the grift cannot be killed then Access Fund should team up with the open beta guy and submit an insanely competitive bid when the contract comes up.
- mmanfrin 3y ago
  > Saying it goes to "recreation.gov" misses the point. > It goes to Booz Allen Hamilton. Article says this in the 4th sentence.
  - hirako2000 3y ago
    The board is a list of titles. Titles should capture the main point. The title stands as the money going to a gov agency rather than the park which isn't nearly as infuriating as calling out Booz Allen Hamilton / a co.
- qrohlf 3y ago
  The complexity comes in the fact that there are different data formats and rules in play for almost every single management agency's permit/reservation system on Rec.gov - the JSON responses for, say, a trailhead in National Forest in Inyo Country, CA are different from a trailhead in National Forest in Deschutes County, OR. And those are both different for the JSON response format for a trailhead in the King Range National Conservation Area. Which is different from a trailhead in any National Park. And so on. And all of these different permit systems trigger different forms, agreements, vehicle information collection, etc. once you move to the checkout stage. It truly is a massively complex system - if not technically, then logistically, by the sheer quantity of requirements-gathering and accommodation of hundreds of different individual land management agencies' unique systems for managing user access. I've read some of the source code for the web client (last I checked, they were still publishing source maps to prod) and it's a pretty impressive feat that it works and holds together as well as it does. As you can tell from my comment above, I'm just as incensed about the business model as you are. It is highway robbery. Taxpayers subsidized the creation of the site, and now we're being doubly ripped off as a huge portion of the profits collected are being funneled straight back into the pockets of Booz Allen (and, no doubt, also being channeled into lobbying efforts designed to maintain this monopoly through the renewal process for the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act this October). However, I don't think that unfairly diminishing the technical and organizational achievement the site represents is going to help with trying to find a solution to the economic grift that it also represents.
  - iudqnolq 3y ago
    > the JSON responses for, say, a trailhead in National Forest in Inyo Country, CA are different from a trailhead in National Forest in Deschutes County, OR. And those are both different for the JSON response format for a trailhead in the King Range National Conservation Area. Which is different from a trailhead in any National Park. Are you guessing here? I don't really know what you mean by the JSON response (from who to who?). I tried to look into whether recreation.gov has per-agency or even more granular schemas. I found a manual to the Recreation.gov agency portal that suggests the answer. Note that even though it's hosted on the usfs site it has no usfs-specific branding. The section "Adding New Inventory to Recreation.gov" doesn't describe any agency-specific options explicitly, though it does have vague manual processes that could in theory involve custom development. https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprd3806156.pdf https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprd380615...
    - qrohlf 3y ago
      You can browse the site and look at the network traffic in your browser's devtools. There are some radically different response structures for the various different land management agencies.
      - iudqnolq 3y ago
        I just did. There's a whole bunch of junk and duplication. I focused on finding the available campsites at a campground because that seems like a core feature to me. You apparently make a GET to https://www.recreation.gov/api/camps/availability/campground/{id}/month?start_date={date} I tested a USFS campground in Idaho and a BLM campground in Utah. Both returned JSON in the same general shape. USFS (Idaho): https://www.recreation.gov/api/camps/availability/campground/233908/month?start_date=2023-05-01T00%3A00%3A00.000Z https://www.recreation.gov/api/camps/availability/campground... { "{id}": { "availabilities": { "{date}": "Available", }, "campsite_id": "63045", "campsite_reserve_type": "Site-Specific", "campsite_rules": null, "campsite_type": "STANDARD NONELECTRIC", "capacity_rating": "Single", "loop": "LOWER", "max_num_people": 8, "min_num_people": 1, "quantities": { "{date}": 1, }, "site": "012", "supplemental_camping": null, "type_of_use": "Overnight" } } BLM (Utah): https://www.recreation.gov/api/camps/availability/campground/10161359/month?start_date=2023-05-01T00%3A00%3A00.000Z https://www.recreation.gov/api/camps/availability/campground... { "10161360": { "availabilities": { "{date}": "Not Reservable", }, "campsite_id": "10161360", "campsite_reserve_type": "Site-Specific", "campsite_rules": null, "campsite_type": "STANDARD NONELECTRIC", "capacity_rating": "", "loop": "One", "max_num_people": 8, "min_num_people": 1, "quantities": { "date": 1, }, "site": "Site 1", "supplemental_camping": null, "type_of_use": "Overnight" } } I'll give some credit to Booz. This seems like a decent API. Plus it's nice theres no auth whatsoever. It certainly looks to me like they're using the same data model to store both examples. This is of course just one example. There are a ton of other JSON requests in the flow of reserving one of these specific campsites, and then there are all sorts of other processes like backpacking permits. In my personal experience I've seen two backpacking permit reservation system styles. There's one that looks like it was shoehorned into the campsite reservation model, and another where it looks like the agency gets to define a bunch of free text fields and then has a human manually review and enter into a system. In general I get the vibe from recreation.gov that whenever there's complicated logic there's a human in the background doing the actual work. I base this on the amount of free text inputs and the fact some actions take hours to weeks. That's it for me looking into this, but if you post an example of what you're talking about I'd be interested.
- MattGaiser 3y ago
  As an aside, has anyone tried this as a way to improve government services?
- MagicMoonlight 3y ago
  If you’re making 97% profit then you’ll just get the selection rigged so that anybody new is ineligible.
- systems_glitch 3y ago
  IIRC the current bid from Booz Allen is "free, and we'll run it for free."
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  I wish the government was capable of building an extremely simple CRUD website, but all the evidence points to them not being able to. If they can't build it in house they have to pay someone to build it for them, this website required no upfront payment, the pay structure seems reasonable imo.
- wcarron 3y ago
  Dude, what? First off, OpenBeta kinda sucks. It's slow, and honestly, has some pretty bizarre UX/UI decisions. MP is vastly more comprehensive and looking at my local areas it's clear he/she just scraped MP (or straight up copied payloads from their API) to populate the db. There's no clear connection between operating a meager route database and implementing a timed reservation and permit system for national parks and campgrounds. There's literally nothing about OpenBeta that would make one think: "Yes, this (potentially singular) person has the skills, knowledge, and resources to run a nationally available service with all the SLAs that accompany gov't projects in a domain that's only veeeeeeerry tangentially related to OpenBeta."
qrohlf 3y ago
This is something where every single person who appreciates public lands should be mad as hell, and letting their elected officials know. For a more in-depth analysis of the dubious legality of the whole situation, see Matt Stoller's excellent article "Why Is Booz Allen Renting Us Back Our Own National Parks?" [1] Also, as someone who runs a private, substantially more aggressive availability monitor than outdoorstatus.com (updates every minute rather than every 30 minutes), the unfortunate reality is that the permit scarcity has created something of an automation arms race. Looking at my analytics for today for a few examples, I see 1 permit availability for the Enchantments that was snagged in less than 5 minutes after being posted, some availability for Lost Coast that disappeared in under 4 minutes, and finally 5 different availabilities in Yosemite's Upper Pines campground that disappeared in under 60 seconds. A 30 minute update rate is, sadly, not going to do you much good if you want to be competitive at reservations for any popular site near the Bay Area on a weekend. In a lot of cases, the latency of the Twilio -> SMS process is long enough that by the time I get a notification of availability, it's already been claimed by someone else's bot. This is depressing because, while I have the knowledge and tools to play in this adversarial sandbox of permit acquisition, the majority of people in this country do not. Your access to public lands should not be contingent upon your network programming skills or how many IP addresses you're able to stripe your requests across to avoid ratelimiting. While I expect to see many more pay-to-play services like Outdoor Status, Campflare, Campnab, Campsite Monitor, etc. pop up over the next few years, what I'd really like to see is a service that disrupts Booz Allen Hamilton with a business model that eliminates its monopoly and the junk fees that are central to how it profiteers off its role as the Ticketmaster of public lands access. [1] https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/why-is-booz-allen-renting-us-back https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/why-is-booz-allen-renting...
- seattle_spring 3y ago
  Side tangent: Wow, the Lost Coast is a lottery now? I through-hiked it in 2007 and no one was there. I barely meet anyone who has even heard of it.
  - asciimike 3y ago
    Seriously. I did it in ~2010 and ~2013 and we saw a few dozen people, besides the commune living at the south end.
bushbaba 3y ago
Sad as government should be building this out. Heck I’d argue this is perfect for a public university to partner on, providing students a real-life (but low risk) way to build production services in prep for joining the workforce.
- M3L0NM4N 3y ago
  Just the level of grift happening here tells me the government is paying way too much for this website to begin with.
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  This website was envisioned soon after the obamacare fiasco which proved that the government is incapable of building websites. They felt they had no choice but using an outside contractor.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    >the government is incapable of building websites And, at the local (say town) level that's probably true. So what happens is they farm it out to an existing service for "free" and the service tacks on a fee. As a result, I either write a physical check or have my bank do so for town fees because if I paid directly online I'd pay a surcharge.
quickthrower2 3y ago
Is it enough of a rort that private landowners could compete, offering camping etc. on their land for a lottery that gives better odds?
- pwython 3y ago
  Too many liabilities, squatters, delinquents, etc for private landowners. It's a legal headache to create a "camping ground" on your property in the US.
  - 19h 3y ago
    True, though some states have 'recreational use statutes' that limit landowner liability for allowing public access to private land. But there are still many risks and headaches involved, even with those protections.
  - closeparen 3y ago
    Private campgrounds are a routine sight in the national park gateway towns.
  - vel0city 3y ago
    I've camped at many private campgrounds in the US. There's even a big franchise chain called KOA for private campgrounds. https://KOA.com/campgrounds https://KOA.com/campgrounds Sites like Hipcamp help people market their private campgrounds online. Lots of private places listed here. https://www.hipcamp.com https://www.hipcamp.com On top of that, sometimes state parks/campgrounds can actually be just leased private land. https://www.texastribune.org/2023/02/15/fairfield-lake-texas-state-park-closure/ https://www.texastribune.org/2023/02/15/fairfield-lake-texas...
- Grustaf 3y ago
  If you privately own thousands of acres of extremely scenic land I think there are more lucrative things you can do with it.
- loeg 3y ago
  This system is only employed at the most popular locations -- your random rural land isn't going to be competitive with a top-10-in-the-world attraction.
jk563 3y ago
Am I understanding this correctly: you need to pay for a permit for hiking in some places in the USA, and it's a lottery so you might not even be able to go once you've paid the money?
- jamiem 3y ago
  Yes. It's intended to limit the number of visitors to protect sensitive areas. It made sense to me, as I was under the impression that the money went directly to the park. But the fact that it goes to a middleman changes things.
  - jk563 3y ago
    I can understand that reasoning, and it does make sense to me too, but only if all the money goes to the park. Ideally then even only for successful applications.
    - justsomehnguy 3y ago
      Ideally you should have an option to support the park even if you don't go/don't want/can't go for a hike and in any case you should receive a clear breakdown of the costs in what goes where.
    - kwhitefoot 3y ago
      Even then it is a regressive tax.
- zoiksmeboiks 3y ago
  For some places would be over run given ease of access and historical features draw huge crowds. Everyone wants ultimate freedom then complains when they show up and everyone else with ultimate freedom has trashed the place. The general public has a huge credibility problem of its own to grapple with, but somehow it’s always someone else’s job to sit and reflect, find the solution.
  - 19h 3y ago
mnky9800n 3y ago
Does the fines you post for sneaking into the park and getting caught go directly to blm? Because that's a good solution if they do.
- aradox66 3y ago
  galaxy brain
ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
I think that we've had previous discussions on this very story, here. It's familiar. Sadly, it's not unique. Many charities and whatnot also end up trading their good name, to enrich corporations. My mother used to run a nonprofit, and told me about it. In her case, I think they only made about 5% of the proceeds, and were happy about it. The "Trade on a nonprofit's name, and make money" model is quite old (My mother's org was doing it 30 years ago).
throwaway568 3y ago
The article suggests the 100% lottery fee goes to BAH, but I found out part of it goes to the BLM. "Of the $9 [lottery fee], $5 ultimately goes to Booz Allen and $4 goes to the Bureau of Land Management, which manages the site, a BLM spokesman said." https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/recreation-gov-making-millions-and-being-sued/ https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/recreation-gov-mak... More context on public vs privately run web service: https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/recreation-gov-making-millions-and-being-sued/#post-3778239 https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/recreation-gov-mak...
- jordanvincent 3y ago
  You are correct and I updated the article to reflect that. Thank you!
twoodfin 3y ago
Is there something new here, or is the Booz/National Parks story[1] now “Intuit’s lobbying kills simpler tax filing”’s kid brother? [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=national%20park&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
MagicMoonlight 3y ago
“The free market is so efficient guys” (efficient at maximising personal profit)
- kevviiinn 3y ago
  Oh but you see this isn't a true ~Free Market^TM~
vrglvrglvrgl 3y ago
[dead]
takk309 3y ago
Ryan Zinke, one of Montana's congressman, has been critical of the permit system lately. This article https://montanafreepress.org/2023/04/11/zinke-calls-for-changes-to-glaciers-reservation-system/ https://montanafreepress.org/2023/04/11/zinke-calls-for-chan...
- nktrnk 3y ago
  Can’t pass the opportunity to post this clip about RZ: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQTMFEglJYg&pp=ygUWUnlhbiB6aW5rZSBqb2hubm9saXZlcg%3D%3D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQTMFEglJYg&pp=ygUWUnlhbiB6a...
say_it_as_it_is 3y ago
What is the problem here? The contract was "I agree to pay you later for the system you provide and maintain now for millions of users. You will be paid through money spent on lotteries and other financial activity in the system." This is as agreed upon between the US Government and the recreation.gov providers.
greenie_beans 3y ago
this is content marketing for the site's campsite status tracker. so i'm gonna plug my similar reservation tracking tool for glacier national park, except the money goes to a trail maintenance organization: https://old.reddit.com/r/GlacierNationalPark/comments/12ivo1h/get_automatic_notifications_when_a_backcountry/ https://old.reddit.com/r/GlacierNationalPark/comments/12ivo1... if anybody is interested in another park, i can make one for you.
coding123 3y ago
All government software projects should be directly staffed by government hired software engineers. I don't understand why that doesn't happen.
- 19h 3y ago
  Because that would make too much sense.
- tradertef 3y ago
  Because freedom, you know.. socialism vs. capitalism.
  - coding123 3y ago
    I don't get this response, at all. It only saves money to have the govt directly build this stuff. I mean take a look at this: https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2016/09/post_183.html https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2016/09/post_183.html If Oregon had directly hired software engineers they could have built that portal with probably a team of 6 in less time. If we continue making governments have to pay billions for shitty websites, then we'll continue to have to increase taxes and ... big government -> socialism.
- 0xffff2 3y ago
  One compelling reason is the nature of the US Civil Service. In the vast majority of cases, US government employees are extremely hard to fire or lay off for any reason. As a result, each government agency only keeps a small core of staff that are direct employees and the vast majority of work is done by contractors whose employment can ebb and flow with the whims of congressional funding.
hospitalJail 3y ago
Gambling is such a sick thing in general. An occasional play is fine, but that isn't where the money is made. Like alcohol, the industry is fuel by addicts. I want to believe in some freedom utopia, but the human brain is manipulated. I don't have a solution outside of education. Warning people how the brain can be manipulated.
- loeg 3y ago
  There is basically no connection between hike/camp lottery tickets and traditional gambling.
nofunsir 3y ago
Someone please explain to me, how I am supposed to access our national parks and resources that are ONLY available on recreation.grift if I don't agree to recreation.grift's privacy policy[1]? [1] https://www.recreation.gov/privacy-policy https://www.recreation.gov/privacy-policy
singhrac 3y ago
I don't really understand (I mean, I do understand on some level) why we don't have a decent US government agency that specializes in consulting work like this. Why didn't the BLM get the USDS to work on this website and then train them to maintain it? I guess I don't understand why Booz Allen Hamilton is able to employ contractors for this work but the USDS is not. Is this truly the cost of building and running such a website (i.e. 2-3mm/yr according to this website)?
- jelling 3y ago
  Re: hiring contractors via an intermediary, the civil service unions pay scales make it nearly impossible to hire skilled specialists at market rates. Also, it is very difficult to lay-off public employees if their role becomes unnecessary in the future. Hiring indirectly via a contracted intermediary largely solves both of these problems.

465 points by jordanvincent 3y ago

nahnahg 3y ago

[dead]

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

ke88y 3y ago

Saying it goes to "recreation.gov" misses the point. It goes to Booz Allen Hamilton. Booz are effectively stealing insane amounts of taxpayer dollars to run an extremely simple CRUD website. And no, it's not "actually complex and just looks like CRUD". It's really just CRUD built on AWS services. IMO? If the grift cannot be killed then Access Fund should team up with the open beta guy and submit an insanely competitive bid when the contract comes up.

mmanfrin 3y ago
> Saying it goes to "recreation.gov" misses the point. > It goes to Booz Allen Hamilton. Article says this in the 4th sentence.
- hirako2000 3y ago
  The board is a list of titles. Titles should capture the main point. The title stands as the money going to a gov agency rather than the park which isn't nearly as infuriating as calling out Booz Allen Hamilton / a co.
qrohlf 3y ago
The complexity comes in the fact that there are different data formats and rules in play for almost every single management agency's permit/reservation system on Rec.gov - the JSON responses for, say, a trailhead in National Forest in Inyo Country, CA are different from a trailhead in National Forest in Deschutes County, OR. And those are both different for the JSON response format for a trailhead in the King Range National Conservation Area. Which is different from a trailhead in any National Park. And so on. And all of these different permit systems trigger different forms, agreements, vehicle information collection, etc. once you move to the checkout stage. It truly is a massively complex system - if not technically, then logistically, by the sheer quantity of requirements-gathering and accommodation of hundreds of different individual land management agencies' unique systems for managing user access. I've read some of the source code for the web client (last I checked, they were still publishing source maps to prod) and it's a pretty impressive feat that it works and holds together as well as it does. As you can tell from my comment above, I'm just as incensed about the business model as you are. It is highway robbery. Taxpayers subsidized the creation of the site, and now we're being doubly ripped off as a huge portion of the profits collected are being funneled straight back into the pockets of Booz Allen (and, no doubt, also being channeled into lobbying efforts designed to maintain this monopoly through the renewal process for the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act this October). However, I don't think that unfairly diminishing the technical and organizational achievement the site represents is going to help with trying to find a solution to the economic grift that it also represents.
- iudqnolq 3y ago
  > the JSON responses for, say, a trailhead in National Forest in Inyo Country, CA are different from a trailhead in National Forest in Deschutes County, OR. And those are both different for the JSON response format for a trailhead in the King Range National Conservation Area. Which is different from a trailhead in any National Park. Are you guessing here? I don't really know what you mean by the JSON response (from who to who?). I tried to look into whether recreation.gov has per-agency or even more granular schemas. I found a manual to the Recreation.gov agency portal that suggests the answer. Note that even though it's hosted on the usfs site it has no usfs-specific branding. The section "Adding New Inventory to Recreation.gov" doesn't describe any agency-specific options explicitly, though it does have vague manual processes that could in theory involve custom development. https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprd3806156.pdf https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprd380615...
  - qrohlf 3y ago
    You can browse the site and look at the network traffic in your browser's devtools. There are some radically different response structures for the various different land management agencies.
    - iudqnolq 3y ago
      I just did. There's a whole bunch of junk and duplication. I focused on finding the available campsites at a campground because that seems like a core feature to me. You apparently make a GET to https://www.recreation.gov/api/camps/availability/campground/{id}/month?start_date={date} I tested a USFS campground in Idaho and a BLM campground in Utah. Both returned JSON in the same general shape. USFS (Idaho): https://www.recreation.gov/api/camps/availability/campground/233908/month?start_date=2023-05-01T00%3A00%3A00.000Z https://www.recreation.gov/api/camps/availability/campground... { "{id}": { "availabilities": { "{date}": "Available", }, "campsite_id": "63045", "campsite_reserve_type": "Site-Specific", "campsite_rules": null, "campsite_type": "STANDARD NONELECTRIC", "capacity_rating": "Single", "loop": "LOWER", "max_num_people": 8, "min_num_people": 1, "quantities": { "{date}": 1, }, "site": "012", "supplemental_camping": null, "type_of_use": "Overnight" } } BLM (Utah): https://www.recreation.gov/api/camps/availability/campground/10161359/month?start_date=2023-05-01T00%3A00%3A00.000Z https://www.recreation.gov/api/camps/availability/campground... { "10161360": { "availabilities": { "{date}": "Not Reservable", }, "campsite_id": "10161360", "campsite_reserve_type": "Site-Specific", "campsite_rules": null, "campsite_type": "STANDARD NONELECTRIC", "capacity_rating": "", "loop": "One", "max_num_people": 8, "min_num_people": 1, "quantities": { "date": 1, }, "site": "Site 1", "supplemental_camping": null, "type_of_use": "Overnight" } } I'll give some credit to Booz. This seems like a decent API. Plus it's nice theres no auth whatsoever. It certainly looks to me like they're using the same data model to store both examples. This is of course just one example. There are a ton of other JSON requests in the flow of reserving one of these specific campsites, and then there are all sorts of other processes like backpacking permits. In my personal experience I've seen two backpacking permit reservation system styles. There's one that looks like it was shoehorned into the campsite reservation model, and another where it looks like the agency gets to define a bunch of free text fields and then has a human manually review and enter into a system. In general I get the vibe from recreation.gov that whenever there's complicated logic there's a human in the background doing the actual work. I base this on the amount of free text inputs and the fact some actions take hours to weeks. That's it for me looking into this, but if you post an example of what you're talking about I'd be interested.
MattGaiser 3y ago
As an aside, has anyone tried this as a way to improve government services?
MagicMoonlight 3y ago
If you’re making 97% profit then you’ll just get the selection rigged so that anybody new is ineligible.
systems_glitch 3y ago
IIRC the current bid from Booz Allen is "free, and we'll run it for free."
HDThoreaun 3y ago
I wish the government was capable of building an extremely simple CRUD website, but all the evidence points to them not being able to. If they can't build it in house they have to pay someone to build it for them, this website required no upfront payment, the pay structure seems reasonable imo.
wcarron 3y ago
Dude, what? First off, OpenBeta kinda sucks. It's slow, and honestly, has some pretty bizarre UX/UI decisions. MP is vastly more comprehensive and looking at my local areas it's clear he/she just scraped MP (or straight up copied payloads from their API) to populate the db. There's no clear connection between operating a meager route database and implementing a timed reservation and permit system for national parks and campgrounds. There's literally nothing about OpenBeta that would make one think: "Yes, this (potentially singular) person has the skills, knowledge, and resources to run a nationally available service with all the SLAs that accompany gov't projects in a domain that's only veeeeeeerry tangentially related to OpenBeta."

qrohlf 3y ago

This is something where every single person who appreciates public lands should be mad as hell, and letting their elected officials know. For a more in-depth analysis of the dubious legality of the whole situation, see Matt Stoller's excellent article "Why Is Booz Allen Renting Us Back Our Own National Parks?" [1] Also, as someone who runs a private, substantially more aggressive availability monitor than outdoorstatus.com (updates every minute rather than every 30 minutes), the unfortunate reality is that the permit scarcity has created something of an automation arms race. Looking at my analytics for today for a few examples, I see 1 permit availability for the Enchantments that was snagged in less than 5 minutes after being posted, some availability for Lost Coast that disappeared in under 4 minutes, and finally 5 different availabilities in Yosemite's Upper Pines campground that disappeared in under 60 seconds. A 30 minute update rate is, sadly, not going to do you much good if you want to be competitive at reservations for any popular site near the Bay Area on a weekend. In a lot of cases, the latency of the Twilio -> SMS process is long enough that by the time I get a notification of availability, it's already been claimed by someone else's bot. This is depressing because, while I have the knowledge and tools to play in this adversarial sandbox of permit acquisition, the majority of people in this country do not. Your access to public lands should not be contingent upon your network programming skills or how many IP addresses you're able to stripe your requests across to avoid ratelimiting. While I expect to see many more pay-to-play services like Outdoor Status, Campflare, Campnab, Campsite Monitor, etc. pop up over the next few years, what I'd really like to see is a service that disrupts Booz Allen Hamilton with a business model that eliminates its monopoly and the junk fees that are central to how it profiteers off its role as the Ticketmaster of public lands access. [1] https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/why-is-booz-allen-renting-us-back https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/why-is-booz-allen-renting...

seattle_spring 3y ago
Side tangent: Wow, the Lost Coast is a lottery now? I through-hiked it in 2007 and no one was there. I barely meet anyone who has even heard of it.
- asciimike 3y ago
  Seriously. I did it in ~2010 and ~2013 and we saw a few dozen people, besides the commune living at the south end.

bushbaba 3y ago

Sad as government should be building this out. Heck I’d argue this is perfect for a public university to partner on, providing students a real-life (but low risk) way to build production services in prep for joining the workforce.

M3L0NM4N 3y ago
Just the level of grift happening here tells me the government is paying way too much for this website to begin with.
HDThoreaun 3y ago
This website was envisioned soon after the obamacare fiasco which proved that the government is incapable of building websites. They felt they had no choice but using an outside contractor.
- ghaff 3y ago
  >the government is incapable of building websites And, at the local (say town) level that's probably true. So what happens is they farm it out to an existing service for "free" and the service tacks on a fee. As a result, I either write a physical check or have my bank do so for town fees because if I paid directly online I'd pay a surcharge.

quickthrower2 3y ago

Is it enough of a rort that private landowners could compete, offering camping etc. on their land for a lottery that gives better odds?

pwython 3y ago
Too many liabilities, squatters, delinquents, etc for private landowners. It's a legal headache to create a "camping ground" on your property in the US.
- 19h 3y ago
  True, though some states have 'recreational use statutes' that limit landowner liability for allowing public access to private land. But there are still many risks and headaches involved, even with those protections.
- closeparen 3y ago
  Private campgrounds are a routine sight in the national park gateway towns.
- vel0city 3y ago
  I've camped at many private campgrounds in the US. There's even a big franchise chain called KOA for private campgrounds. https://KOA.com/campgrounds https://KOA.com/campgrounds Sites like Hipcamp help people market their private campgrounds online. Lots of private places listed here. https://www.hipcamp.com https://www.hipcamp.com On top of that, sometimes state parks/campgrounds can actually be just leased private land. https://www.texastribune.org/2023/02/15/fairfield-lake-texas-state-park-closure/ https://www.texastribune.org/2023/02/15/fairfield-lake-texas...
Grustaf 3y ago
If you privately own thousands of acres of extremely scenic land I think there are more lucrative things you can do with it.
loeg 3y ago
This system is only employed at the most popular locations -- your random rural land isn't going to be competitive with a top-10-in-the-world attraction.

jk563 3y ago

Am I understanding this correctly: you need to pay for a permit for hiking in some places in the USA, and it's a lottery so you might not even be able to go once you've paid the money?

jamiem 3y ago
Yes. It's intended to limit the number of visitors to protect sensitive areas. It made sense to me, as I was under the impression that the money went directly to the park. But the fact that it goes to a middleman changes things.
- jk563 3y ago
  I can understand that reasoning, and it does make sense to me too, but only if all the money goes to the park. Ideally then even only for successful applications.
  - justsomehnguy 3y ago
    Ideally you should have an option to support the park even if you don't go/don't want/can't go for a hike and in any case you should receive a clear breakdown of the costs in what goes where.
  - kwhitefoot 3y ago
    Even then it is a regressive tax.
zoiksmeboiks 3y ago
For some places would be over run given ease of access and historical features draw huge crowds. Everyone wants ultimate freedom then complains when they show up and everyone else with ultimate freedom has trashed the place. The general public has a huge credibility problem of its own to grapple with, but somehow it’s always someone else’s job to sit and reflect, find the solution.
- 19h 3y ago

mnky9800n 3y ago

Does the fines you post for sneaking into the park and getting caught go directly to blm? Because that's a good solution if they do.

aradox66 3y ago
galaxy brain

ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago

I think that we've had previous discussions on this very story, here. It's familiar. Sadly, it's not unique. Many charities and whatnot also end up trading their good name, to enrich corporations. My mother used to run a nonprofit, and told me about it. In her case, I think they only made about 5% of the proceeds, and were happy about it. The "Trade on a nonprofit's name, and make money" model is quite old (My mother's org was doing it 30 years ago).

throwaway568 3y ago

The article suggests the 100% lottery fee goes to BAH, but I found out part of it goes to the BLM. "Of the $9 [lottery fee], $5 ultimately goes to Booz Allen and $4 goes to the Bureau of Land Management, which manages the site, a BLM spokesman said." https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/recreation-gov-making-millions-and-being-sued/ https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/recreation-gov-mak... More context on public vs privately run web service: https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/recreation-gov-making-millions-and-being-sued/#post-3778239 https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/recreation-gov-mak...

jordanvincent 3y ago
You are correct and I updated the article to reflect that. Thank you!

twoodfin 3y ago

Is there something new here, or is the Booz/National Parks story[1] now “Intuit’s lobbying kills simpler tax filing”’s kid brother? [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=national%20park&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

MagicMoonlight 3y ago

“The free market is so efficient guys” (efficient at maximising personal profit)

kevviiinn 3y ago
Oh but you see this isn't a true ~Free Market^TM~

vrglvrglvrgl 3y ago

[dead]

takk309 3y ago

Ryan Zinke, one of Montana's congressman, has been critical of the permit system lately. This article https://montanafreepress.org/2023/04/11/zinke-calls-for-changes-to-glaciers-reservation-system/ https://montanafreepress.org/2023/04/11/zinke-calls-for-chan...

nktrnk 3y ago
Can’t pass the opportunity to post this clip about RZ: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQTMFEglJYg&pp=ygUWUnlhbiB6aW5rZSBqb2hubm9saXZlcg%3D%3D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQTMFEglJYg&pp=ygUWUnlhbiB6a...

say_it_as_it_is 3y ago

What is the problem here? The contract was "I agree to pay you later for the system you provide and maintain now for millions of users. You will be paid through money spent on lotteries and other financial activity in the system." This is as agreed upon between the US Government and the recreation.gov providers.

greenie_beans 3y ago

this is content marketing for the site's campsite status tracker. so i'm gonna plug my similar reservation tracking tool for glacier national park, except the money goes to a trail maintenance organization: https://old.reddit.com/r/GlacierNationalPark/comments/12ivo1h/get_automatic_notifications_when_a_backcountry/ https://old.reddit.com/r/GlacierNationalPark/comments/12ivo1... if anybody is interested in another park, i can make one for you.

coding123 3y ago

All government software projects should be directly staffed by government hired software engineers. I don't understand why that doesn't happen.

19h 3y ago
Because that would make too much sense.
tradertef 3y ago
Because freedom, you know.. socialism vs. capitalism.
- coding123 3y ago
  I don't get this response, at all. It only saves money to have the govt directly build this stuff. I mean take a look at this: https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2016/09/post_183.html https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2016/09/post_183.html If Oregon had directly hired software engineers they could have built that portal with probably a team of 6 in less time. If we continue making governments have to pay billions for shitty websites, then we'll continue to have to increase taxes and ... big government -> socialism.
0xffff2 3y ago
One compelling reason is the nature of the US Civil Service. In the vast majority of cases, US government employees are extremely hard to fire or lay off for any reason. As a result, each government agency only keeps a small core of staff that are direct employees and the vast majority of work is done by contractors whose employment can ebb and flow with the whims of congressional funding.

hospitalJail 3y ago

Gambling is such a sick thing in general. An occasional play is fine, but that isn't where the money is made. Like alcohol, the industry is fuel by addicts. I want to believe in some freedom utopia, but the human brain is manipulated. I don't have a solution outside of education. Warning people how the brain can be manipulated.

loeg 3y ago
There is basically no connection between hike/camp lottery tickets and traditional gambling.

nofunsir 3y ago

Someone please explain to me, how I am supposed to access our national parks and resources that are ONLY available on recreation.grift if I don't agree to recreation.grift's privacy policy[1]? [1] https://www.recreation.gov/privacy-policy https://www.recreation.gov/privacy-policy

singhrac 3y ago

I don't really understand (I mean, I do understand on some level) why we don't have a decent US government agency that specializes in consulting work like this. Why didn't the BLM get the USDS to work on this website and then train them to maintain it? I guess I don't understand why Booz Allen Hamilton is able to employ contractors for this work but the USDS is not. Is this truly the cost of building and running such a website (i.e. 2-3mm/yr according to this website)?

jelling 3y ago
Re: hiring contractors via an intermediary, the civil service unions pay scales make it nearly impossible to hire skilled specialists at market rates. Also, it is very difficult to lay-off public employees if their role becomes unnecessary in the future. Hiring indirectly via a contracted intermediary largely solves both of these problems.