After visiting my local climbing gym (AIR) and finding there were not really any new problems since my last visit (around 2 weeks ago). I decided to save my $12 and not climb. This is a nice luxury given to me by the wall in my attic. I began wondering if it makes financial sense to hire a routesetter to cater to people wanting more difficult boulder problems. So we'll run the numbers.
Lets say the gym strives to set 4 new problems in the V7 and up range each week. This can be done by a skilled routesetter in about 2 hours. The question becomes: if the setter is paid $15 an hour(is this a good rate for this type of job) it means the gym has to earn $30 more each week to off-set the cost. Assuming the people who take advantage of this use a punch card(~$10/visit at AIR) the gym needs 3 extra people each week. This seems very reasonable to me.
So now the question becomes: Why do Albany area gyms not hire a routesetting team?