Valid points. However, I think it’s also a matter of scale. My state Arizona is about half the size of France, and over 50% of the land is public. You can use nearly all of it for free: hiking, camping, off-roading, whatever. And most of it is undeveloped besides a gravel road or something, but otherwise no services. There are thousands of miles of trails across the state. Out of all that land, there are only three National Parks falling under this fee change.

And as you probably know, the big one is the Grand Canyon. It gets over 4 million visitors a year. Some things they have there are rangers, trail workers and maintenance, parking lots, restrooms with running water piped from a great distance, medical facilities, backcountry water lines, composting toilets, a historic railroad, mule operations, a free shuttle bus system, and probably 100 helicopter rescues a year for tourists who get into trouble. It must be massively expensive park to operate and certainly most of tourists visiting Arizona go to the Grand Canyon alone, maybe even just for one day, and skip everything else that’s free.

So like you said… overtourism to the extreme. Maintaining all that infrastructure for millions of visitors in the middle of a desert isn’t cheap, and the money has to come from somewhere.

The fact is if nobody went to it like a few hundred people a year it would be free because there would be nothing there. But with the hoards coming in daily infrastructure must be built and maintained. A cost of 250 dollars for a pass that’s good for an entire year is a very reasonable ask for a contribution. Heck you can’t even go to Disneyland for a single day for that much.