A nominal fee to use a working version of a nonworking service? Sign me up!

It is sad if our baseline standard of Government is so low that this is what we want.

Like saying your prefer private security, that you pay for via city entry tolls to police because they are friendlier and the company that hires them is more efficient than the worlds worst police departments.

Again I say, huh? Did you miss that this is a government contractor operating a service on behalf of, and with oversight by, that same government?

The government identified that an existing system wasn’t working and replaced it with one that works great. Would you prefer that they didn’t…?

Of course it's sad. That doesn't make it wrong. The government is not good at building websites, outsourcing is the best way for them to do it until proven otherwise.