Late to be saying this, I suppose, but back in the 1960s, ARRL convinced the FCC to take away privileges from General class and Advanced class licensees so as to "incent" them to want to take higher class exams and gain full privileges.
They called it "Incentive Licensing." Now, that membership is only a tad more than 21% of licensed amateurs, ARRL wants to do just the opposite, in hopes of gaining more of those Technicians out there as members.
I opposed it based on them being disingenuous. I was an angry teenager when Incentive Licensing took away privileges from me. Now, I'm an angry 72 year old in seeing the League try to do just the opposite.
Over time, I saw the benefit of Incentive Licensing to encourage advancement of the technical and operating side of amateur radio. It was, in retrospect, a good idea. The idea of erasing incentive to advance and going the other way is totally wrong, IMO.
73.