Sure its not a problem now because it's what, one guy saving a space with a tarp for a family of 6. What if he hires 30 employees and all you see are blue tarps up & down main street How pissed off would you be if you can't get a spot to sit because a row of blue tarps are taking up the spots?
I'm an AP holder, I live 20 minutes away, and yes this would bother me to see it even though I never bother waiting for the parades/fireworks.
People should play fair, and once this guy's "enterprise" gets big enough he will get shut down.
He's running an unauthorized business on Disney's property. A ticket to a theme park (or a sporting event) grants you legal license to enter private property. There are terms & conditions on his license to enter the park. I'm pretty sure selling his spot in line or on Main Street violates that license.
People pay money at DLR in many ways to save their time and to get better viewing spots. There's the VIP services already mentioned. There's the F! dessert seating or eating at a pricey place in DCA to get WOC passes to the special dining area. There's staying onsite so you can go in an hour earlier than others who have the same AP or PH ticket you do. And as for the line of tarps argument, well,
that already is the case--the only difference is that it's people who are paying with their personal time to get good spots WAY ahead of a show like WOC or the fireworks instead of paying someone else to get the spot. Do you get mad if you arrive 15 minutes before a show and other people have taken all the good spots? No, they made a choice how to invest their time. Are you mad that you can't line up at 4pm to get F! dessert seating for free by being one of the first people there? No, the people who get F! seating made a choice in how to invest their money (as did you by choosing to not buy those tickets). Same for the dining-pass area for WOC. I don't want to eat at the restaurants that offer the passes, so I will not have the option of seating anywhere in that designated section for that show. Should I be upset that a nice viewing spot I would like won't be available to me, no matter how early I wish to wait for it?
As a legal matter, there certainly could be a point that it is not a *Disney* business, unlike, say, the VIP service or F! seating, and what one's admission to the park allows, but the other issues you mention are all things that exist already and are options Disney itself offers, so the park does not have a conceptual or ethical objection to the idea.
People with the cash, and a willingness to part with it, can purchase services to enhance and expedite their park experience.
And, as others have mentioned, people have different needs and groups made up of different ages and mobility, so these services might be more important to giving some people a more relaxing and more efficient park experience--not to mention evening out the playing field. For example, people with older kids (or no kids at all in their party) will be able to really run ahead of me and my three kids ages 7 and under at DCA rope drop to get to RSR and/or get in line for FPs, not to mention that on M, W, F, and Sun onsite guests will get into DCA an hour earlier. (And there are threads devoted to how much running and hustling there is to get to do those things each morning, so I'm not making up a crazy idea of what merely *could* happen.) The idea that I could pay someone more mobile, someone stroller-free, who does not care about getting on the ride himself, to get those FPs for us is pretty appealing. And I don't see how paying for a runner is any more "unfair" than people who send a party member as runner for FPs or people who spend thousands more to stay at an onsite hotel to get in early and get in the FP line before I'm even allowed to enter the park.
I don't think badly of the people who do save because they have the right to their own opinion and since Disney allows it doesn't bother me.
For now, we'll waiting (im)patiently for our favorite shows, and hope people around us are polite and undestand that if you're there early you deserve the better view.
