Yet there is another reality here. You can't keep money out. I don't know what fraction of the oversubscription of tickets went to speculators and what fraction went to burners who just entered the lottery more than they needed to so as to reduce their chances of not getting tickets. And I haven't seen the design of the resale system being built. But because burners also encourage other burners not to sell for more than face value, this will put more tickets in the hands of speculators, because I suspect scalpers love the fact that they can snap up tickets at face value from burners and then resell them in the open markets. Indeed, the admonition not to sell tickets on eBay just makes them more scarce there and drives up the price. If you do sell a ticket at face value, you might want to work hard to assure you are selling to a real burner -- have a Skype call with them to see their face, and ask for a photo of them on the playa perhaps. Or meet in person. But not everybody will do this, and lots of scalpers will just pick up these low priced tickets.
The real market value of the tickets is higher than the face value. The only question is who is going to capture that value? Ie. where does the difference in price go?
- It could go to burners who were lottery winners and then decide to sell at market price. That's not encouraged, and not of particular value. But it's better than the 2nd choice.
- It could go to scalpers. If there's a lot of scalping, a decent fraction of the money paid by people to attend BM will go not to the BMOrg or burners but to scalpers. This is how scalping works, and why it exists.
- It could go to the BMOrg, if the BMOrg were to charge more for the tickets so that supply and demand balanced. In fact, if the BMOrg sold the tickets in something akin to a Dutch Auction, the BMOrg would capture all the value -- and Burners would be paying more for tickets.
So what is most in line with the community's principles? Well, the BMOrg is not the community. They are a for-profit corporation though they hope to move to non-profit mode. But they don't make a huge profit, so if the BMOrg captures this extra value rather than the scalpers, I think it's good for the community. That's because the BMOrg would spend this money mostly on things to benefit the community.
For example, it might spend it to make more subsidized tickets for those in need, as well as for artists. It might greatly increase the art grants, to fill the playa with more elaborate art. It might pay for more services for a faster gate, or better exodus, or more frequent potty service. Many options are open, most of which feed that value back into the community.
And that's the thing most in line with the burner ethic. A lottery as a method of exclusion is random so it does not exclude any particular group. But there's little else good to say about it. Selling tickets for their true value excludes the least wealthy, and that is an issue, but in the end it serves the community more.
A merger of the solutions makes sense. I think that most of the tickets should be sold at market price, via dutch auction. However, a large block of tickets should be left aside, after the auction is completed. These tickets would be sold for much less than the auction price -- subsidized by the extra price the auction-bidders paid. They could be allocated by lottery or any other system. You would have your choice -- pay the market value if you want to be sure you can come, or take your chances if you need to pay less. Not egalitarian, but there is no egalitarian solution, not even first-come-first-served.
(I will add that if speculators turn out to be a large portion of this problem, non-transferable tickets are also a solution here, though they still leave the need for some plan of allocation.)
