"Dee Flint" wrote

Although it may have made it harder to get full privileges, it seems to have
made it easier to get beginner and intermediate privileges. The prospective
ham could take the journey in smaller steps and have meaningful privileges
along the way. Although the implementation was poorly handled (i.e. some
people actually losing privileges), the concept of having a series of smaller,
easier to manage steps makes sense if you want to get people involved in the
hobby. They don't have to go all out to sample the hobby. They can get basic
privileges and see if they like it before they dive into it fully.

Neat sounding theory, but that isn't the way it happened.

Dis-incentive licensing which went into effect in the fall of 1968 did not
introduce any new "steps".

Those "steps" originated at the restructuring in the early 50's when the
six-class license structure was put in place.

From the introduction of that license structure in early 50's until 1968, all
the top 4 license classes had exactly the same privileges. The license
structure (and the test structure) remained the same after dis-incentive
licensing was introduced.

73, de Hans, K0HB