Any company could bid on the contracts to make these sites, and more importantly, maintain them and provide services.
Most Silicon/tech companies don't do these contracts because they are not as profitable and simply doing usual tech work.
So while BAZ makes money on fees, it's most likely not because they're evil wizards - it's more likely because not many others capable of running such a project for the required length of time bid on it.
So, if you really think these things are somehow such a theft of money, go compete, do it vastly cheaper, hire your friends and other do-gooders, and see how it goes.
But in the end, you might find that articles like this simply promote outrage and not actual understanding of the how and why of projects like it.
Completely disagree here. See my comment in the main thread of this post. A startup could net anywhere from 200k/yr for a state park contract to 15m+/yr depending on the state. However, realistic cap on revenue with a healthy market share for just the park management / reservation management side is 55-75m annually.
We are actually competing but it's important to understand that companies like Booz Allen have fought (successfully much of the time) to have a number of qualifiers put in these RFP's that would prevent any start-up from being accepted. Things like "You need X years in this specific market for your proposal to be accepted". Obviously the only ones who can possibly have that are the existing vendors which virtually eliminates the possibility of fresh competition. We've successfully got a few states to change their requirements however, which is the first time that's been done in a quite some time.
The company I work for does exactly small and mid sized govt contracts, the vast majority won on bids with no shady input from us. There's tons of companies like us.
> So, if you really think these things are somehow such a theft of money, go compete, do it vastly cheaper, hire your friends and other do-gooders, and see how it goes.
Do you sincerely believe this is how it works? Just make your own software consultancy team and lobby the government to build their new campsite reservation system?
Most Silicon/tech companies don't do these contracts because they are not as profitable and simply doing usual tech work.
So while BAZ makes money on fees, it's most likely not because they're evil wizards - it's more likely because not many others capable of running such a project for the required length of time bid on it.
So, if you really think these things are somehow such a theft of money, go compete, do it vastly cheaper, hire your friends and other do-gooders, and see how it goes.
But in the end, you might find that articles like this simply promote outrage and not actual understanding of the how and why of projects like it.