I wonder if some of the fear here is caused by the fact that this kind of tool would tend to get its users into classes first, before users that manually checked the original website on a regular basis... which seems unfair, especially since it has a (nominal) fee, and it removes the vague link between enthusiasm and ability to get in that manual checking entails.
But perhaps that's better stated as that the tool exposes the fundamental brokenness and unfairness of a system that allocates limited space based on who presses the refresh button at the right time.
A nominal fee unfair? The "lab" fee for an ENGLISH class could pay that fee 20 times over. Colleges and university costs have risen faster than nearly every other "industry" -- including healthcare. I wouldn't say a nominal fee was unfair, not when a textbook can cost $150. What's unfair is a state university paying jackass administrators 6 figure salaries, yet it takes a kid to create a notification system that actually works. What the heck are all those IT administrators actually doing with their day? One would think class registration would be single most important IT task of a university. After all, if students aren't in classes, what's the point?
Change is hard. Having any fee to get into classes "the best way" makes the university look bad, but for the university to change their code to work properly out of the box is too much work (after all, they didn't write it in the first place, and probably don't understand it). The result is fear. ;p
But perhaps that's better stated as that the tool exposes the fundamental brokenness and unfairness of a system that allocates limited space based on who presses the refresh button at the right time.