Sort of, but from what I have heard, being a donor is also absurdly competitive due to the low marginal cost to the donor. Every prospective parent wants their child's donor-father to be a 4.0 GPA valedictorian ivy league graduate, captain of the football team, leader of men, captain of industry. Or maybe visionary researcher, famous scientist. Or perhaps top-billing hollywood actor, or decorated military hero. And, behold, because the parent can be choosy about the donor, they actually can have that.
So in the end being a donor isn't really the key strategy here, it's just a force multiplier for highly successful men who have always had fantastic odds for passing on their genes to multiple mothers (even in nominally monogamous societies)
The target for those ads is most likely college students. As someone not famous, slightly above average height, with a good but not-outstanding-for-Seattle career, I can attest that at least some prospective parents seem to be satisfied with my description. At least based on how often I have to get my blood re-tested in order to release more vials.
Even when there are no legal limitations, sperm banks will often limit the number of donations made by any single donor. Most donors will not travel to donate to multiple sperm banks.
2) Limitations on donor anonymity. (probably useless these days - acquaintance of mine tracked down her anonymous donor father via 23AndMe, and was devastated to discover he didn't want to have any contact with her. seems obvious, but...)
3) Limitations on donor compensation. (same reason there are limitations on blood and organ sales, I imagine). However, you have to pay highly achieving men significantly more than others for them to take time out of their day to donate into a vial. And also to abstain so that their donations are high quality.
It's true but do evolutionary strategies matter anymore? We are at most 2 generations away from complete DNA design, and i m even sure that many people will be digging graves for more "exotic" sources.
