This made the rounds a while back and was framed to be fairly clickbait[1]. From what I understand each agency pays into the tower operation and they just want hams to do the same.
[1] https://mobile.twitter.com/OH8STN/status/1179637421308293120
[1] https://mobile.twitter.com/OH8STN/status/1179637421308293120
I don’t see how this is clickbait unless the demands were reasonable.
If money is the problem then California can find far saner and better means than this. I’m sure there are tons of analogies from similar situations with a small subsidized subset being excluded from fees, many with far more questionable reasoning.
Often it is a no-brainer to allow volunteers to do their thing for free. And it is quite common, surely even in america.
In the software world, the equivalent is free accounts for open-source projects at places like GitHub and TravisCI.
That's called rent-seeking.