Great comment. Regarding the possibility of charging for the work, I'll add that there's also concern about keeping volunteers on. You're spot on that people vo

Great comment. Regarding the possibility of charging for the work, I'll add that there's also concern about keeping volunteers on. You're spot on that people volunteer for the company and access to fun equipment, but for many there's also the element of being a 'heroic volunteer'. Once you start charging for escorting tourists who stubbed their toes, some of that glitz is gone. Additionally, I've heard concerns from volunteers that if it's a paid service, the expectations change. Now, the volunteers can say 'no' if asked to do something they don't want to do. If it's a service that's charged for (even if it's the government putting in direct funding), the dynamics of the relationship change. If adding government money to the mix results in fewer volunteers, it's likely that the cost of the operation would go up instead of down, as they'd need to add paid rescuers. As an aside, this is similar to the issues the Tor Project has been discussing for a while. There are proposals to economically incentivize people to run exit relays. But right now, most exit relays are run at a loss to volunteers, and it's unlikely that such a scheme could actually pay for the entire cost of the infrastructure required. So what happens if you start paying, but less than the cost? It stops being altruistic, and becomes an economic calculation that does not make sense. It's likely that you'd lose a lot of the idealistic relay operators, which are exactly the ones you want to keep.