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Comment by solardev | Hacker News Reader

Yuck, please no! The privately-run concessionaires inside the parks are already terrible, providing poorly-maintained lodge rooms at cutthroat prices and overpriced terrible restaurants. At least most of the private guiding companies are good.

These parks are our nation's shared treasures, they should just be free like the D.C. museums. The last thing they need is more privatization. The NPS does a fine job at providing the visitor services that AREN'T totally commercialized (rangers, upkeep, lotteries, etc.)

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> The NPS does a fine job at providing the visitor services that AREN'T totally commercialized (rangers, upkeep, lotteries, etc.)

Some of those aspects of park operations have already been contracted out to a significant extent

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

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/why-is-booz-allen-renting...

Actually all those problems are precisely because NPS does not privatize instead once it figures out it can not provide basic services it grudgingly invites private players with very little freedom to run their business or pricing.

The NPS doesn't control concessionaire prices. All of the problems with the private concessionaires of that want to make a profit, so they put as little money in as possible while setting prices as high as possible.

What makes you think privatizing would fix any of that? It'd just be another Universal / Disney / etc. with overpriced foods AND overpriced admissions

Edit: And this also totally misses the point of the parks to begin with. They're there not just to entertain visitors but to preserve these landscapes for posterity. Privatizing them would totally go against that. We don't need anymore land barons exploiting the masses and preventing them from experiencing the places they have a birthright to.

National parks in the US have a strong focus on preservation/conservation. Those in Canada put a lot more emphasis on recreation.

Having been to the Canadian ones, it is quite easy to see extremely well managed private businesses in parks. I didn't have a single poor experience (compared to the US ones).

Of course, making management of the whole park private? No way.

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